Skype hogs LAN upload bandwidth

One of the three users on my shared home LAN uses Skype (Vista) to make lengthy evening video calls to his GF in America and it seems that Skype doesn't know how to play nicely with the available bandwidth. Does anyone know of any (free or not) utilities or Skype plugins which will limit the Skype upload bandwidth usage on his laptop?

Typically, if it can grab it while the other two users are temporarily idle, Skype grabs up 90% of the up bandwidth (it fluctuates on my router screen between 300-450 Kbps on a maximum capability of 484 Kbps).

Another LAN user likes to play WoW most evenings but that seems to behave nicely. Even if he is the only user, Wow rarely seems to use more than 100Kbps and often much less. Trouble is, if Mr Skype is already running when Mr WoW wants to play, the Warcraft connection is almost unusable as Skype doesn't relinquish any of its bandwidth.

Skype is a general nuisance on our LAN - if it is running and I simply want to surf, pages load slowly; if I want to send an email with a small attachment, it takes forever.

I have read that Skype video works perfectly well on 192Kbps and so I have told Mr Skype that he must find a way to limit it to that -- or turn off the outbound video and send voice only. He says that he can find no way of restricting the upload bandwidth in Skype's options, nor has he found a utility which would restrict just the outbound traffic from just his computer. He claims that his GF will run off with another man if she can't get her nightly video fix (I should care!).

I would prefer to find a solution that works locally on his Vista computer. But I would consider a LAN management utility which runs on my Mac OSX machine if there is such a thing.

Any help appreciated.

Simon

Skype is a P2P system and what you're seeing is a PC becoming a P2P node doing Skype's work - irrespective of making calls. It will often use up all the available tcp/ip sessions in the router.

http://blog.benpowell.co.uk/2007/08/i-dont-want-to-b... may help

NetLimiter appears to be the answer to my question for $15. Keeps Skype under control on local machines and runs on Vista.

http://www.netlimiter.com/

Simon

You should be able to firewall Skype out to allow it to only use port 80 - as such it will work and never become a SuperNode.

Skype is very particular about machines it uses as a supernode. On a standard ADSL connection with a NAT router the chances of your machine being used as a supernode are approximately zero.

I get this problem too. I reguarly see 100kb/s of upload bandwidth going out my machine just with skype open. Too bad they don't hav limits like ichat does.

Its true, you can video conference on much lower ammounts of bandwidth, i have been able to on the 200kbps mark once a time when I was ye old throttled. But this comes at a cost of fps and quality of the picture.

It seems that your in a catch 22 situation, give mister skype his nightly girl fix, or award the world of warcrafters a new level up and XP.

And heres a tip, if you walk into a internet cafe with a dozen other people babbling in different languages on skype you know the speeds will suck

spherical objects. Skype has flattened my machine before, natted on ADSL with a static IP on the wan side.
http://yarwell.blogspot.com/2006/11/skype-stole-my-p...

According to http://www.skype.com/security/universities/

"Any computer hosted on a network that is behind a network address translation (NAT) device or restrictive firewall will disable supernode functionality."

You had a problem almost 3 years ago so I suppose it is possible that Skype have tweaked their software since then.

I doubt it, you're just quoting from text rather than experience, the text said the same thing then and it has recurred since. The thread we are in suggests it is a persistent problem.

Skype do disclose how to turn it off, so it clearly isn't automatic.