Limiting the kid's time online

A friend with two young teenage boys has asked me a question that will ring bells with parents everywhere. I might as well quote what he has asked -

Having major problems with children addicted and playing online games with their friends for far too long.

I’m sure that I’ve seen and believe that it is possible to program time limits through the router for individual pieces of equipment; are you aware of this – do I need to buy a new more advanced router and if I do will it be compatible with my Plusnet fibre. Any pit-falls; I can’t load anything on to their computers anymore as they will outwit me in the blink of an eye, and also they have so many other online alternatives nowadays!

I’ve searched online and cannot see anything to help me program my current router (technicolour TG582n), but I’m quite happy to invest in a new one if it helps the cause; just need reassurance that it’s a reasonable option.

It isn't clear whether he is asking about limiting their access times to certain hours or maximum durations though I'm not presently aware of any router than can do either.

 

give him this link if it helps him http://www.plus.net/support/security/spam/plusnet_protect_user_guide.shtml#parentalcontrolfeatures

 

That is software you install on one or more computers. What we are looking for is a router that has these features built-in so that they can be applied, via the MAC codes, to all or any connected device.

 

It may well help. I had already identified Linksys as a possibility through THIS article. Case now of studying the model specs to find a suitable one.

 

Check out Cyberoam Netgenie as well.

http://www.choose.net/media/guide/features/cyberoam-netgenie-ng11vh-wireless-router-review.html

 

This will not help. But it worked for me....
Turn it off. My son is now doing well in IT security, but while he was in school the WiFi internet was down from 08:00 to 18:00 on week days. It only takes a few clicks on the browser to turn it off and my system is hard wired so it never affected me.