Help setting up Qos

[tgilroy]

After trying to figure out Qos from reading a bunch of different forums I am still clueless on how to best set up the rules on my Asus RTN-53. I get around 4.29 Mbps download and 0.87 Mbps upload from my DSL. I have a fire stick that I stream from but as soon as my girlfriend goes to Netflix on her laptop, the bandwidth is instantly allocated only to Netflix and the fire stick has to keep buffering. I also play online on a Ps3 and we download music and files on a regular basis. I have added the fire stick and the PSN as my highest priorities but I do not know how I should have the two different file transfers or web surfing and HTTP set up. Also, on the next page there is the option for allocating bandwidth percentage, does this have to be changes in order for the different priority settings to actually work? I am not good at all with this stuff so any help is greatly appreciated.

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[bill001g]

That is a extremely small connection to try to run multiple video streams on.

The vast majority of the configuration is for UPLOAD which you only have .87 anyway. You may or may not be exceeding this. For most people the upload speed is not being eaten. Although video streaming is mostly download there is some amount of upload traffic confirming reception of that data.

The high/medium low configuration tend to not work very well especially on small connections.

You will have to change the maximum and minimum band width on each class so that the lower ones are more limited. You can also put limits on device by ip address.

Still what you will in effect have to do is configure the router to give your device a huge chuck of the bandwidth. A single video stream can easily eat 4m.

You will end up with a very fancy configuration that in effect blocks all other from using the internet when you are using your device. It may be easier to just do that directly or tell the person to get off.

In either case you are going to have the conflict of whose internet use in more important and someone will not get good service. Your only real solution is to get more bandwidth.

 

[tgilroy]

I was afraid of that....

So even if I set the percentages accordingly, if there is no other traffic, will the router allow the full amount of bandwidth to the lower priority ones?

For example... If I am transferring files and I have only allocated 75% maximum bandwidth but no one else is using the internet, will the router give 100% of the bandwidth to the file transfer? I am going by that point in the first picture about the packets....

 

[bill001g]

No if you set the max limit it is set all the time. At least I think that is how these screens work. Asus has made lots of updates in different releases.

But that really is the only way to be sure it even partially works. This still does not actually limit the traffic with QoS it is actually the end device responding to packet loss. Only the ISP can really do QoS for traffic being sent. Some programs like torrent will not really limit themselves, so you may not send them all the data it asks for but it will keep asking at a high rate.

Still the hard limits on traffic is the only way available and you have to be extremely careful that when you add to together the smaller traffic rates they can not overload your connection.

Realistically the only way QoS really works is in a corporate environment where there is complete control of all the equipment and all the connections between sites. It has very limit ability when the internet is involved.

 

[tgilroy]

Ok that makes sense. I just have a couple more...

With my ISP I do have the option of going to a higher plan, however it costs 5-10 dollars more per month and it is only to a max of 10 Mbps. I know I am capable of getting atleast 6.5 Mbps on my DSL line because the day they hooked up the internet, a speedtest was ran and we were consistently seeing those speeds after multiple tests. After the tech. left is when my speed went back down to 4.3 as I am only paying for a 5Mbps plan so they had to reduce it slightly. If I were to switch to the higher plan, and at worst case I could only receive the 6.5Mbps speed I saw before, would that improve the streaming greatly or will it even change anything?

My other question is... in the service name on the QoS screen there is no specific Netflix option. Even after giving my fire stick priority and reducing everything else to 70%, the fire stick still has to buffer a lot whereas my girlfriend's laptop is streaming Netflix perfectly.... I can only assume that the above options I have there are not including Netflix from a browser so therefore it is still able to hog all the bandwidth.... What service option should I select in order to control that, or do you know a way I can figure out which service it would be?

I appreciate your patience you have been very helpful

 

[bill001g]

You would likely have to reduce everything else to say 20% of the total. Most streams need between 2-3m. Netflix is like just more tolerant of packet loss. hd netflix can easily eat a 4m connection some run almost 6m. The 4k streams eat 20m.

It gets very tricky to get the QoS right using that menu. The best test would be to match you device by IP and put it in the high group. Then set all other groups to a maximum of some tiny amount. This should in effect block all other traffic. You would then at least know if you have the QoS.
settings right.

I suspect though if you manage to get it to work you will just make your girl friends netflix lag instead of your device. I doubt you will ever get a solution that you can run both. If you could actually get 10m then you would be close to getting both to work.

 

[tgilroy]

Ok, thanks very much for your help