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Okay...thanks to good-ol Vonage, I've thought of a simple, yet brilliant (in my humble opinion) method to throttle bandwidth based on the time of day. Here's the story: I use Vonage VoIP lines for ALL of my phone lines at home - primarily because I'm cheap, not because of the VoIP "cool factor." The problem? I run a massive file server at home that holds every digital picture, work project, video recording, etc... that I've ever done. Sure, I have a local backup that runs, but I always think "what if the house burns down?!?" so...I have an automated program that backs EVERYTHING up to a remote FTP server anytime things change (add/deletes/etc.) on my file server. The problem? I save so much stuff to the server, the FTP file backup is always running and destroying my Vonage call quality for my home phone. Here's how I fixed it:

Step 1: Create an access-list that matches my file server (172.30.100.11), but only during the day.

Router(config)# time-range DAY (creates a new time range)
Router(config-time-range)# periodic weekdays 6:00 to 22:00 (matches weekdays from 6:00am to 10:00pm)
Router(config-time-range)# periodic weekend 6:00 to 22:00 (matches weekends from 6:00am to 10:00pm)
Router(config-time-range)# exit
Router(config)# ip access-list extended SERVER
Router(config-ext-nacl)# permit ip host 172.30.100.11 any time-range DAY (matches my server during the time-range I specified above)
Router(config-ext-nacl)# exit
Router(config)#

I was teaching a Quality of Service (QoS) course at Interface a few weeks back. One of my students asked an interesting question: Is it possible to use QoS to throttle bandwidth for just a few, a-typical "bandwidth hog" websites using only Cisco gear... You bet it is! ...and what a cool idea! We worked through the configuration on the whiteboard, and Mike Storm (a fellow instructor & friend) documented the process...here's what we came up with:

For the sake of all that is sacred....save us from the bandwidth thieves! YouTube, Google Video, MySpace....and others. All of them are to thank for our latest level of Internet bandwidth saturation. If it bothers you like it does me, why not do something about it. Save the Internet bandwidth for your business!! On a Cisco router, it is easy to recognize and limit this type of traffic by using Cisco Quality of Service, specifically NBAR and traffic policing components.