It's still 1 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up. I'll probably keep it that way and disable QoS when a big update or download comes up. I'm considering downgrading to the 500 Mbps plan, but it would only save me like $13 a month...
Got it - and you have cable internet I reckon? Based on your experience, do you think the low upload speed is causing most of the ping spikes, or was it something else? The difference between the download and upload is huge - do you think a symmetrical internet would alleviate the need for QoS settings?
Yeah, it's cable. Yes, I would expect a higher upload speed would help, but I haven't tested in a way to know exactly how and how often my network gets saturated. If I had, say, 500 Mbps up, then I would expect to be able to increase my QoS up limit to over 300 Mbps, but that's just a guess. I'm sure QoS would still be needed if I had anything on my network that ever tried to upload faster than that (e.g. cloud backups).
at 1gbit x86 is best - evenroute pro or openwrt diy
at 1000x50 you are ackbound: [https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/ack\_filtering/](https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/ack_filtering/)
Make some popcorn, watch this:
https://blog.apnic.net/2020/01/22/bufferbloat-may-be-solved-but-its-not-over-yet/
>Recently, I decided to give a higher end router with a better CPU (2.0 GHz quad core) and more RAM (1 GB) a try. Using ASUSwrt-merlin and Cake QoS, I was now able to increase my speed limits to 325 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up (a significant increase) with no bufferbloat.
Care to share on which higher end router you went with?
I've been having issues with this on my TP-Link AX1800 and I'm just really feeling that the interface for most TP-Link devices is over simplified. They lack a lot of the critical QoS/bandwidth management features that would help alleviate bufferbloat. So needless to say I'm currently in search of a new wireless solution.
Interesting side effect, which might answers people here who keep asking why their not getting the full speed they pay for.
Once I turned on Media Prioritization on my Linksys EA8500 and set my speed limit to 350mb down/up it actually filter down to all devices. (I am on gig fiber)
According to Bufferbloat I went from F to A. I play a lot of CODM, so It will take a couple of day to see if this makes a difference.
A very simple way to do this would be to just get a router with a 2.5Gbps WAN port. Most 1Gbps plans from ISPs are slightly overprovisioned, at least for DOCSIS 3.1 aka cable internet. Even though my plan is 1Gbps, I regularly pull down 1200Mbps.
Assuming everything else on the network is 1Gbps, no single device will be able to fully saturate your connection. This works just fine for my uses.
I don't think that has anything to do with my bufferbloat.
My previous ASUS GT-AC2900 had a 1 Gbps WAN port. My new ASUS RT-AX88U Pro has a 2.5 Gbps WAN port.
My effective max download and upload speeds didn't change after the upgrade. They were 1 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up, before and after.
As I said, the improved processing power of the RT-AX88U did greatly improve my max possible download speed with zero bufferbloat, but it didn't increase anything beyond what the 1 Gbps port was already capable of.
Based on other comments, my limiting factor is now probably that my 50 Mbps upload is too slow to support download speeds over 325 Mbps without inducing latency.
The best DIY router that I've found for 2Gbs QoS throughput is the Nanopi R6S @$175.
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BN3YB9W1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BN3YB9W1)
It'll run FriendlyWRT (5.10 kernel) or customized OpenWRT for 6.x kernel. It's ARM based and tops out at about 5W.
@OP I have this exact router on Comcast 1gig. If you want to keep your gigabit connection this is the best route, you can pair it with a ubiquiti access point or switch your current router to access point mode.
The other option is to just lower your cable plan to one under whatever bandwidth your router can handle for Sqm.
I hate that term bufferbloat -- substitute the word congestion and it reads much better. The reason that people with very high speed connections don't suffer much from bufferbloat is the same reason that speeds over 1Gbs are generally unnecessary/wasteful -- it's hard to actually get a download to saturate the connection. Until it's saturated, there's no congestion. If you live in an area where your TCP latency to download locations is relatively low, you'll see more congestion.
The higher your bandwidth, the more CPU you'll need to do the QoS to prevent the congestion. The conversion of a lot of consumer devices via updating to dd-wrt or equivalent may not have the CPU power to handle your ISP speeds. I've been recommending the IQRouter Pro's but they are are currently out of stock while they upgrade the hardware from 1.0 Gbs to 2.5Gbs. I believe they just slap OpenWRT on commodity hardware making it plug/play so the DIY people should be able to do the same. If you're a bit more network savvy, I'd suggest looking at VyOS as an alternative on commodity hardware.
Most consumer routers still don't have FQ\_CODEL/SQM or CAKE for QoS. The Edgerouters do have FQ\_CODEL/SQM QoS but are limited in the speeds supported. If anybody has recommendations for consumer routers that can do 1Gbs QoS, please post what manufacturer/model you are using.
>The reason that people with very high speed connections don't suffer much from bufferbloat is the same reason that speeds over 1Gbs are generally unnecessary/wasteful -- it's hard to actually get a download to saturate the connection. Until it's saturated, there's no congestion.
I've seen a lot of people make comments along these lines. I understand that it's *harder* to get congestion on a faster connection, but (at least from what I've seen), it's hardly rare.
My gigabit down connection starts to have bufferbloat/congestion when something is being downloaded at between 325 and 500 Mbps. I don't have to have a download running at the full gigabit download speed to start seeing an effect on my latency.
I don't have to worry about something like streaming congesting my network, but I know there are download servers that can. I haven't tested it lately, but a quick Google search tells me that people can get Steam downloads at over 600 Mbps. A single Steam download would affect the latency on my gigabit network if I have QoS disabled.
Is there something I'm missing?
If there's no congestion, packets should go out at the rate of your ISP. Maybe it's on your upload. I live alone so I don't have to worry about somebody randomly download crap while I'm on a conference call or gaming...
My ISP rated max down is 1 Gbps and max up is 50 Mbps.
Best case, with nobody else using the network and *no* *uploading* happening, congestion starts at 300 Mbps down.
With nobody else using the network and *no* *downloading* happening, congestion starts at 20 Mbps up.
So, yes, it's somewhat easier to congest my network during an upload, but it's not hard to do it with a download either.
I don't live alone and there's always the chance that one of our phones or whatever could start an update or a cloud upload while I'm gaming. It wouldn't be hard for a single device to exceed those congestion limits (upload or download) if I don't have QoS enabled.
Good idea.
Test 1:
QoS off
Downloaded file from Steam (also tested with Battle.net download and Fast.com test with similar results)
Monitored download bandwidth: 888 Mbps
Monitored upload bandwidth during download: 26 Mbps
Idle latency to ping Google: 20-35 ms
Latency to ping Google during download: 91-115 ms with timeouts
Test 2:
QoS on
Download limit: 1000 Mbps
Upload limit: 20 Mbps
Monitored download bandwidth: 360 Mbps
Monitored upload bandwidth during download: 16 Mbps
Idle latency to ping Google: 17-24 ms
Latency to ping Google during download: 78-115 ms with timeouts
Even with a 1000 Mbps down limit and 20 Mbps up limit in QoS, it seems to be smart enough to know that it can't run at the full gigabit bandwidth without congesting/bufferbloating the network. Even so, it doesn't throttle enough because the latency still spikes with a 360 Mbps download in progress.
Test 3:
(Known good settings)
QoS on
Download limit: 325 Mbps
Upload limit: 20 Mbps
Monitored download bandwidth: 320 Mbps
Monitored upload bandwidth during download: 15 Mbps
Idle latency to ping Google: 16-20 ms
Latency to ping Google during download: 16-21 ms
I think comparing Test 2 to Test 3 shows that there is latency spiking from the download over 320 Mbps, alone, regardless of upload bandwidth.
Edit: Ok, I think I see what you're getting at. If my 50 Mbps max with my ISP was higher, then I'd be able to push the download limit higher in QoS without increased latency.
Obviously, this isn't something I can really test without getting a better ISP.
1000/50 is a tricky plan and it seems to be created to market:fish the moderate users and it did succeed just because hey it’s fancy and fast on paper right but you know it extended to the advanced users as well because of its charm.
But the issue is always the upload to start with… purely just look at the number and see how dodgy 1000 and 50.. like a joke!
Here in Australia we have a lot gamers complaining with similar issues and most of them are not actually an advanced user at all to start with, not like you, not even close and they just don’t get it to be frank. Let’s not dwell on this but it sounds like an Australian connection with that plan!
There are really fairer plans across the globe with far cheaper prices compare to Australia.
But good news coming up and we already started to see better balanced plans (which was created for biz customers of course for higher prices) dropping the prices to be available for residential users. For example 250/100 which I wouldn’t think twice comparing to 1000/50.
And when it comes to symmetrical gig plans which we are a bit far from those like at least 5+ years for resi users! And it hurts indeed when you see people can get literally 2-3 gig symmetrical connections far cheaper across the globe!
Update.. Yesterday, I did turn on the Qos on my Linksys ea8500 router, over gig fiber connection. It did lower my speed out put to around 300, but today my speeds are back up to 680mb/320mb .
Now I am running a Dell 5424 switch downstream with QOS Enable using the COS mode.
Good write-up! What's your ISP subscription bandwidth right now?
It's still 1 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up. I'll probably keep it that way and disable QoS when a big update or download comes up. I'm considering downgrading to the 500 Mbps plan, but it would only save me like $13 a month...
Got it - and you have cable internet I reckon? Based on your experience, do you think the low upload speed is causing most of the ping spikes, or was it something else? The difference between the download and upload is huge - do you think a symmetrical internet would alleviate the need for QoS settings?
Yeah, it's cable. Yes, I would expect a higher upload speed would help, but I haven't tested in a way to know exactly how and how often my network gets saturated. If I had, say, 500 Mbps up, then I would expect to be able to increase my QoS up limit to over 300 Mbps, but that's just a guess. I'm sure QoS would still be needed if I had anything on my network that ever tried to upload faster than that (e.g. cloud backups).
Makes sense! Thanks for answering my questions!
at 1gbit x86 is best - evenroute pro or openwrt diy at 1000x50 you are ackbound: [https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/ack\_filtering/](https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/ack_filtering/) Make some popcorn, watch this: https://blog.apnic.net/2020/01/22/bufferbloat-may-be-solved-but-its-not-over-yet/
A lot of this is over my head. I haven't found a straight forward way to implement ack filtering with my Asuswrt-merlin router.
tc qdisc replace dev your\_device cake bandwidth 44Mbit nat ack-filter docsis
>Recently, I decided to give a higher end router with a better CPU (2.0 GHz quad core) and more RAM (1 GB) a try. Using ASUSwrt-merlin and Cake QoS, I was now able to increase my speed limits to 325 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up (a significant increase) with no bufferbloat. Care to share on which higher end router you went with? I've been having issues with this on my TP-Link AX1800 and I'm just really feeling that the interface for most TP-Link devices is over simplified. They lack a lot of the critical QoS/bandwidth management features that would help alleviate bufferbloat. So needless to say I'm currently in search of a new wireless solution.
Yeah, sorry. It's an ASUS RT-AX88U Pro (AX6000). There are higher end options out there, but it's a big step above GT-AC2900 I was using.
Interesting side effect, which might answers people here who keep asking why their not getting the full speed they pay for. Once I turned on Media Prioritization on my Linksys EA8500 and set my speed limit to 350mb down/up it actually filter down to all devices. (I am on gig fiber) According to Bufferbloat I went from F to A. I play a lot of CODM, so It will take a couple of day to see if this makes a difference.
A very simple way to do this would be to just get a router with a 2.5Gbps WAN port. Most 1Gbps plans from ISPs are slightly overprovisioned, at least for DOCSIS 3.1 aka cable internet. Even though my plan is 1Gbps, I regularly pull down 1200Mbps. Assuming everything else on the network is 1Gbps, no single device will be able to fully saturate your connection. This works just fine for my uses.
I don't think that has anything to do with my bufferbloat. My previous ASUS GT-AC2900 had a 1 Gbps WAN port. My new ASUS RT-AX88U Pro has a 2.5 Gbps WAN port. My effective max download and upload speeds didn't change after the upgrade. They were 1 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up, before and after. As I said, the improved processing power of the RT-AX88U did greatly improve my max possible download speed with zero bufferbloat, but it didn't increase anything beyond what the 1 Gbps port was already capable of. Based on other comments, my limiting factor is now probably that my 50 Mbps upload is too slow to support download speeds over 325 Mbps without inducing latency.
The best DIY router that I've found for 2Gbs QoS throughput is the Nanopi R6S @$175. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BN3YB9W1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BN3YB9W1) It'll run FriendlyWRT (5.10 kernel) or customized OpenWRT for 6.x kernel. It's ARM based and tops out at about 5W.
@OP I have this exact router on Comcast 1gig. If you want to keep your gigabit connection this is the best route, you can pair it with a ubiquiti access point or switch your current router to access point mode. The other option is to just lower your cable plan to one under whatever bandwidth your router can handle for Sqm.
I hate that term bufferbloat -- substitute the word congestion and it reads much better. The reason that people with very high speed connections don't suffer much from bufferbloat is the same reason that speeds over 1Gbs are generally unnecessary/wasteful -- it's hard to actually get a download to saturate the connection. Until it's saturated, there's no congestion. If you live in an area where your TCP latency to download locations is relatively low, you'll see more congestion. The higher your bandwidth, the more CPU you'll need to do the QoS to prevent the congestion. The conversion of a lot of consumer devices via updating to dd-wrt or equivalent may not have the CPU power to handle your ISP speeds. I've been recommending the IQRouter Pro's but they are are currently out of stock while they upgrade the hardware from 1.0 Gbs to 2.5Gbs. I believe they just slap OpenWRT on commodity hardware making it plug/play so the DIY people should be able to do the same. If you're a bit more network savvy, I'd suggest looking at VyOS as an alternative on commodity hardware. Most consumer routers still don't have FQ\_CODEL/SQM or CAKE for QoS. The Edgerouters do have FQ\_CODEL/SQM QoS but are limited in the speeds supported. If anybody has recommendations for consumer routers that can do 1Gbs QoS, please post what manufacturer/model you are using.
>The reason that people with very high speed connections don't suffer much from bufferbloat is the same reason that speeds over 1Gbs are generally unnecessary/wasteful -- it's hard to actually get a download to saturate the connection. Until it's saturated, there's no congestion. I've seen a lot of people make comments along these lines. I understand that it's *harder* to get congestion on a faster connection, but (at least from what I've seen), it's hardly rare. My gigabit down connection starts to have bufferbloat/congestion when something is being downloaded at between 325 and 500 Mbps. I don't have to have a download running at the full gigabit download speed to start seeing an effect on my latency. I don't have to worry about something like streaming congesting my network, but I know there are download servers that can. I haven't tested it lately, but a quick Google search tells me that people can get Steam downloads at over 600 Mbps. A single Steam download would affect the latency on my gigabit network if I have QoS disabled. Is there something I'm missing?
If there's no congestion, packets should go out at the rate of your ISP. Maybe it's on your upload. I live alone so I don't have to worry about somebody randomly download crap while I'm on a conference call or gaming...
My ISP rated max down is 1 Gbps and max up is 50 Mbps. Best case, with nobody else using the network and *no* *uploading* happening, congestion starts at 300 Mbps down. With nobody else using the network and *no* *downloading* happening, congestion starts at 20 Mbps up. So, yes, it's somewhat easier to congest my network during an upload, but it's not hard to do it with a download either. I don't live alone and there's always the chance that one of our phones or whatever could start an update or a cloud upload while I'm gaming. It wouldn't be hard for a single device to exceed those congestion limits (upload or download) if I don't have QoS enabled.
Look at your upload rate while downloading. There's a lot of acknowledging of packets on a TCP connection requiring that upload.
Good idea. Test 1: QoS off Downloaded file from Steam (also tested with Battle.net download and Fast.com test with similar results) Monitored download bandwidth: 888 Mbps Monitored upload bandwidth during download: 26 Mbps Idle latency to ping Google: 20-35 ms Latency to ping Google during download: 91-115 ms with timeouts Test 2: QoS on Download limit: 1000 Mbps Upload limit: 20 Mbps Monitored download bandwidth: 360 Mbps Monitored upload bandwidth during download: 16 Mbps Idle latency to ping Google: 17-24 ms Latency to ping Google during download: 78-115 ms with timeouts Even with a 1000 Mbps down limit and 20 Mbps up limit in QoS, it seems to be smart enough to know that it can't run at the full gigabit bandwidth without congesting/bufferbloating the network. Even so, it doesn't throttle enough because the latency still spikes with a 360 Mbps download in progress. Test 3: (Known good settings) QoS on Download limit: 325 Mbps Upload limit: 20 Mbps Monitored download bandwidth: 320 Mbps Monitored upload bandwidth during download: 15 Mbps Idle latency to ping Google: 16-20 ms Latency to ping Google during download: 16-21 ms I think comparing Test 2 to Test 3 shows that there is latency spiking from the download over 320 Mbps, alone, regardless of upload bandwidth. Edit: Ok, I think I see what you're getting at. If my 50 Mbps max with my ISP was higher, then I'd be able to push the download limit higher in QoS without increased latency. Obviously, this isn't something I can really test without getting a better ISP.
1000/50 is a tricky plan and it seems to be created to market:fish the moderate users and it did succeed just because hey it’s fancy and fast on paper right but you know it extended to the advanced users as well because of its charm. But the issue is always the upload to start with… purely just look at the number and see how dodgy 1000 and 50.. like a joke! Here in Australia we have a lot gamers complaining with similar issues and most of them are not actually an advanced user at all to start with, not like you, not even close and they just don’t get it to be frank. Let’s not dwell on this but it sounds like an Australian connection with that plan! There are really fairer plans across the globe with far cheaper prices compare to Australia. But good news coming up and we already started to see better balanced plans (which was created for biz customers of course for higher prices) dropping the prices to be available for residential users. For example 250/100 which I wouldn’t think twice comparing to 1000/50. And when it comes to symmetrical gig plans which we are a bit far from those like at least 5+ years for resi users! And it hurts indeed when you see people can get literally 2-3 gig symmetrical connections far cheaper across the globe!
Update.. Yesterday, I did turn on the Qos on my Linksys ea8500 router, over gig fiber connection. It did lower my speed out put to around 300, but today my speeds are back up to 680mb/320mb . Now I am running a Dell 5424 switch downstream with QOS Enable using the COS mode.