How to setup QoS with an Actiontec C1000A DSL Modem/Router?

[decko]

I have a 1.5/1 CenturyLink DSL connection (the best internet offered in my area) and I get a lot of latency spikes while trying to game so I wanted to try to setup QoS to see if that would help. I've done it with Cable and Linksys routers in the past, but the way it's done in this DSL modem has me extremely confused, any input would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to set it up for DOTA 2 with UDP ports 27005 through 28999.

Actiontec C1000A with CAC001-31.30L.8 firmware

What is DSCP classification and which option should I select?

Queue priority I'm assuming should be set to high

Source IP and Destination IP information, not sure what to put here. I know one I need to define as my IP and one I need to put the game ports in, but not sure what ports and IP to put for the other two or for netmasks. Thanks again for any help!

 

[i7Baby]

Read the manual. What make and model router?

 

[decko]

Read the manual. What make and model router?

It's an Actiontec C1000A Modem/Router combo, I've read the manual and it doesn't go into detail explaining how to setup the custom QoS options, it only states that you need to fill in all empty values. The only experience I have setting up QoS is with a Linksys router, where all it asked for was a name, port range, protocol and priority. Not sure what all these extra options are for.

 

[bill001g]

The DSCP setting make no difference. They are just markings on the packets used to group them into categories. They are generally used to tell a remote router what traffic is in what group. Problem is they have absolutely no effect in the internet. The ISP will remove them as soon as they get the packets. Even if you were to pay YOUR isp to honor them they will be removed as soon as they go to another ISP.

It would never work anyway on the internet everyone would just set their traffic to the best which is the same as everyone set to nothing.

On top of all this any QoS on your home router has no effect. You can only control traffic you are sending to the internet. It is only effective in situation where you can exceed your upload bandwidth. very low speed DSL connection may benefit. You have no control at all over the traffic that the ISP is sending. By the time your router detects anything the ISP has already discard what they wanted and there is nothing you can do to get the data back.

 

[i7Baby]

Contact Actiontec.

 

[decko]

The DSCP setting make no difference. They are just markings on the packets used to group them into categories. They are generally used to tell a remote router what traffic is in what group. Problem is they have absolutely no effect in the internet. The ISP will remove them as soon as they get the packets. Even if you were to pay YOUR isp to honor them they will be removed as soon as they go to another ISP.

It would never work anyway on the internet everyone would just set their traffic to the best which is the same as everyone set to nothing.

On top of all this any QoS on your home router has no effect. You can only control traffic you are sending to the internet. It is only effective in situation where you can exceed your upload bandwidth. very low speed DSL connection may benefit. You have no control at all over the traffic that the ISP is sending. By the time your router detects anything the ISP has already discard what they wanted and there is nothing you can do to get the data back.

Gotcha, thanks for the lesson on DSCP. I know I don't have control over the traffic the ISP is sending in, but I want QoS setup so DOTA has highest priority on the network traffic being sent out. I'm assuming now I would just leave the DSCP blank or pick any random one, set the source IP to the static IP of my computer, source netmask to my subnet mask and set the port range to the DOTA ports and leave the destination IP information blank??

 

[bill001g]

Yup you just need a way to match you traffic and then set it to the high queue and make sure everything else is set to default or whatever names this router uses.

Generally most people can just match their machine by IP and not worry about the ports. You would think most people would know for example to not run bit torrent on their machine when they are running a game and then expect the router QoS to fix it.

I am not sure how this router works when you match the ip. Some you put in the IP and it assume it is only that IP. Some you put in a subnet and it actually uses the subnet. To match a single ip on a router that uses subnets you want to use 255.255.255.255 so it only matches the 1 machine.

 

[decko]

Yup you just need a way to match you traffic and then set it to the high queue and make sure everything else is set to default or whatever names this router uses.

Generally most people can just match their machine by IP and not worry about the ports. You would think most people would know for example to not run bit torrent on their machine when they are running a game and then expect the router QoS to fix it.

I am not sure how this router works when you match the ip. Some you put in the IP and it assume it is only that IP. Some you put in a subnet and it actually uses the subnet. To match a single ip on a router that uses subnets you want to use 255.255.255.255 so it only matches the 1 machine.

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for all your help it's much appreciated!