Testing your Qos, you may be suprised

[TSellers]

Using the site that Steve gave me: VOIP Speed Test, I was suprised to find that my Qos settings in the Linksys 320N router I was using were making the speeds worse than when QOS was not enabled at all, especialy when torrents were seeding. I returned the router to COSTCO, and grabbed another one. THis time QOS was somewhat better, but it still boiled down to better off without it.

I had the Qos delegated at high to the MAC of my ATA, so that was not a problem. So doing some research, I found that the Auto settings for most routers were lame. It was recommended you run speed test on your upload (apparently QOS only works on your upload) at various times over a few days and find your worst speed averages. Then take a figure that is about 90% of that, and allocate that manually as your upload setting in Qos. I basically just ran one test, got an upload of about 780 kbp/s, so I set my download to 650 and tested again. I got better results this time:

Right now I am:
Downloading a torrent at 350 kB/s
Uploading a few at: 40 kB/s
VOIP Test returns:
Jitter: 11.3
Packet loss: 0

Same as above, while making phone call:
Jitter: 12.3
Packet loss: 0

If I watch tthe torrents while doing this, I don't see them slowing down, so it makes me think that maybe Qos is not doing much anyway. And, if I pause all torrents and run the test again, I get:
Jitter: 0.4
Packet loss: 0

So the conclusion seems to be Qos in some routers at least, may be a bunch of BS. In my case it clearly somes down to pausing torrents when I pick up the phone or it rings if I want the best quality and not relying on Qos to look after it for me.

I think I'm going to wait for the Buffalo Nfinitirouter to go on sale and grab one, after getting a head's up from Steve I had a look at them and they seem to get pretty decent reviews.

Would be good if others could test the Qos on their routers and post their results here.

[Bloodsong]

An excellent review of the consumer QoS systems.
It would be interesting to see how the Open Source community (OpenWRT DD-WRT and Tomato) compete in this frame.
DD-WRT makes a release specifically aimed at VoIP, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

[FONGO_steve]

Sellers, check out this news from the DD-WRT website:

BUFFALO HighPower routers with DD-WRT as factory firmware
Wed, 03/10/2010 - 14:05 — admin

BUFFALO has decided to use DD-WRT as the factory default for its HighPower Routers WZR-HP-G300NH, WHR-HP-G300N and WHR-HP-GN distributed in the US and the EU and should be available in june 2010. The firmware is a full featured DD-WRT with a BUFFALO branded interface and contains some BUFFALO specific features.

I might be making a new purchase in June!

[TSellers]

Thanks Steve,

That is news that everyone here will appreciate knowing.

Now here's the question, is there an advantage to having it come as factory default, or if you already have something like a G300NH can you flash the firmare to this in an upgrade from Buffalo so that you get the 'Buffalo specific features'?

I see that people are flashing the same router that I have, the Linksys 320N with DD-WRT, but it doesn't look like something for the faint of heart. Maybe I should try it after my other router returns from warranty.

[Bloodsong]

Warranty is the main reason why it's an advantage to have it done at the factory.
I flashed a 320N to DD-WRT VPN edition just this past Sunday, no hiccups, didn't have to use TFTP or the like.
Just used some Cat5, plugged into Port 1 (not WAN), went to the firmware update page, and told it to browse to the DD-WRT.bin file.
The biggest fear is if you have a power-outage or the like that interrupts your connection with the router while the firmware is loading.
But there are recovery steps available (which usually require TFTP usage.) so it's not always a lost cause.

[TSellers]

Thanks for that,

So I assume the biggest part of the time is then spent setting things up after you're done like the DHCP allocations, etc.

How different is it to set things up, as I assume that things such as QOS are different? Or is the advantage of DD-WRT you don't need QOS for an ATA?

Guess if I was real paranoid about power going out I could fire up my Honda generators or dig out a UPS, but just my luck they would simply stall halfway through.

Did you use these DD-WRT.v24-13493, six files in total for this operation:

dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_big.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini_wrt320n.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_openvpn.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_ftp.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_voip.bin

[Bloodsong]

dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_big.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini_wrt320n.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_openvpn.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_ftp.bin
dd-wrt.v24-13493_NEWD-2_K2.6_voip.bin

*chuckles*
Each of those is a different distribution of the DD-WRT firmware (Classic Linux complication)
I've only used the standard and the VPN releases myself.
I have a minimal overview following:

Mini is aimed at routers with smaller hardware specs, std_usb_ftp has support for USB drivers as some routers have a USB plug-in connection method... (Usually with some proprietary software aimed at computers with no NIC). This makes it so you can use it to support additional network devices, like an external hard-drive.

OpenVPN as you might guess, has support in it for running both as a VPN client and a VPN server, so far this seems to be really stable, and fairly easy to set up. So if you're ever looking to connect your network with your parents seamlessly

VoIP is aimed at VoIP use, but I don't know what has been done with it, wether it supports an Asterisk build for use with IP phones, or is simply QOSed specifically for VoIP I'm unsure.

Finally Big, Ultra, and Mega builds (of which you only see Big here) are aimed at routers with extra hardware, I suspect they include bundles of the various supported operations (I.E. VPN and VoIP)

Another one not touched on in this list is the KAID release (Kai Daemon) which is a special purpose VPN aimed at connecting your XBOX360 to other XBOX360s in a system connect style as opposed to XBL.

I haven't found the write ups on each distro however.

[TSellers]

Oops, sorry,

Apparently those are all the distros that are complaint with the 320N. So which to choose then, was it the last two that you've tried?

I have to take the kids surfing for spring break next week and my 'SO' is staying behind, so as tempted as I am to trying it right now, it's probably better to cool my heels and not take a chance at bricking my router and then leaving her with no wireless or phone for 2 weeks.

[elwebmaster]

An excellent review of the consumer QoS systems.
It would be interesting to see how the Open Source community (OpenWRT DD-WRT and Tomato) compete in this frame.
DD-WRT makes a release specifically aimed at VoIP, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

My router with latest DD-WRT micro does not perform well with any of the QoS settings that are available. They either don't have any effect on performance or they cause 100% CPU usage (and degraded performance). From what I have read on the DD-WRT settings most users don't seam to have had much success with it either. Apparently, it works better if you are trying to do QoS on an Ethernet port (all my devices are connected over WLAN so that doesn't seem to play well with the QoS). Good luck.

[TSellers]

Well, here's a further head's up, NCIX just put that Buffalo router on sale for $84.99.

So this further begs the question, would it be worth it to buy it now, or wait for June?

Update: In the end I got his router and flashed it to DD-WRT. It was not worth it and I sent it back. I made another post reviewing this router.