Roommate leeching off me. Internet sharing question.

[physicsnoob93]

I currently live in a hostel and use a mobile broadband 7.2 mbit/s connection which caps at 50 gigabytes a month. He pays me 10 dollars/mth and he doesn't even have the contract. I pay 25/mth and I have the contract till end of next year.

I don't want to tell him to gtfo so I was looking for a way I could limit his bandwidth. I use network sharing and the mobile broadband is connected to my macbook pro from which I share the connection by hosting a wireless network.

My aim is basically to annoy him until he gets his own broadband.

Any inputs?

Thank you very much.

 

[jpyc7]

What is your reason for not wanting to share? Is it because it slows down your speed? Or is he using more than his proportional share?

I think you should just give him a reasonable date to arrange for his own account. You can either tell him your real reason or make something up that sounds less harsh. If your rationale for taking the passive-aggressive approach (i.e. annoying him) is because he might be prone to violence, then I'd say you've got bigger problems and should just work on moving out.

P.S. The only technical solution I can imagine is adding some sort of WiFi interference. Assuming you are not the only one in the building using WiFi, you will probably incur the wrath of other people if they find out you're doing that just to annoy a single other person.

 

[Consultant]

How is he leeching if he's paying you on your terms?

What is your reason for not wanting to share? Is it because it slows down your speed? Or is he using more than his proportional share?

I think you should just give him a reasonable date to arrange for his own account. You can either tell him your real reason or make something up that sounds less harsh. If your rationale for taking the passive-aggressive approach (i.e. annoying him) is because he might be prone to violence, then I'd say you've got bigger problems and should just work on moving out.

P.S. The only technical solution I can imagine is adding some sort of WiFi interference. Assuming you are not the only one in the building using WiFi, you will probably incur the wrath of other people if they find out you're doing that just to annoy a single other person.

Great answer.

 

[dampfdruck]

Technically speaking, you could use traffic shaping: http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/software/traffic_shaping_in_mac_os_x

However, I think, this "problem" should be solved by having a talk with your friend.

 

[paduck]

With a 50GB cap, you probably aren't coming close to hitting the limit, are you? If you are, then you must be doing a lot of video downloading. Is he using it so much that you are coming close to blowing through your limit? Is he downloading stuff he shouldn't and you're worried about the risk? If so, then you should talk with him about monitoring the data limits or content. If not, what's the big deal? Would you have a lesser plan otherwise that is cheaper? Are you planning on using the full 50GB? If you aren't, then you are getting a 10/month subsidy.

Why not just have him pay you 17/month (50%) and call it even? If he's paying, he isn't entirely leeching, is he? What is your specific concern?

 

[physicsnoob93]

It's mobile broadband, so it slows it down. Moving out is not really an option since at my school hostel is compulsory for the year. He refuses to pay any more than 10 dollars a month. I might reach my limit this month and yes we download a lot of videos.

Thanks for all the replies and the tip on traffic shaping, i'll give it a shot.