so i'm trying to find some way to monitor two 8mbs lines in our house to make sure nobody hogs up too much bandwidth. is there a program that allows this?
There are plenty of options out there and they vary in price and effectiveness. The best and most effective ways to do it are with commercial shapers like packeteer and netequalizer. These are what schools and businesses use. For home networks, there are several free options that work OK. Try bandwidthcontroller.com.