Internet slows/spikes drastically when one specific roommate is home

[Spiffy McBang]

Three of us live in an apartment. When one in particular is home, a thankfully rare occurrence, the internet speed for the other two of us declines dramatically, and games are nigh unplayable. I found a thread on here (which I'm having trouble finding again) that suggested updating his network drivers might fix the problem. But I mentioned it to him a couple of weeks ago, and just now he said he's done that.

However, he also said that he spent the last half-hour video conferencing over Facebook on his phone. I don't video conference, so... could that alone do it? Would it be something hardware-related with his phone that's a more likely culprit? I kind of don't want to ask how often he does that because his wife lives an hour and a half away, so that's venturing into the realm of overly personal questions. I'm just hoping to get whatever possible solutions I can, because I have a number of friends with whom I can only really interact if we play games online, and I'd like to be able to do that without a problem and with him still being able to do whatever he needs to do.

 

[Luminary]

Honestly your best option is to try and schedule your heavy internet use at different times. Depending on your plan it is absolutely possible that one person could be eating up most of the bandwidth, and video conferencing does take up a fair share.

The two most plausible solutions are either to schedule your heavy internet time around each other so you don't conflict, or to get your other roomates together to discuss purchasing a better internet plan.

 

[audie-tron25]

I would assume that the video conferencing would be treated as VOIP traffic and be treated as priority. This would also be happening with gaming related traffic (except downloads). Quick question, what sort of internet speeds do you have and are you all on Wi-Fi (and if so, on the same wireless network?)?

 

[Spiffy McBang]

Sorry I didn't add some details, was in a rush. We're on DSL, 20 Mbps down, something like 1 Mbps up (if it's purely a bandwidth issue, that's the clear bottleneck). I've run an ethernet cable from the router to my room because I'm not down for gaming over wifi, but every other device in the apartment is wireless. This is also the best internet plan available; our complex a baseline level for free, but that was only 6 Mbps and hell for even light use with everyone home, so we upgraded.

Our DSL router has a QoS system, and I understand the concept, but I've tried creating some basic settings to get priority over the other devices in the house and it hasn't worked. All I've done is input the MAC for each device (not IP because DHCP will occasionally change the IPs), assign Classification Queue as 1 for myself and 8 for everyone else, and assign Mark 802.1p priority as 1 for myself and 7 for everyone else. Those were the only logical settings to change. There are also settings tagged Mark DSCP and Tag VLAN ID, but I don't know know what I would do with those. Any ideas for how to make use of this would be very welcome.

I also just noticed that in the QoS Queue Config, it says that if I disable WMM function, queues related to wireless will not take effect. I wonder if that would fix the problem too?

 

[bill001g]

Your problem is likely you upload rate. Games and video conferencing both use a lot more upload than say web surfing or watching streamed video.

2 people playing games can max a 1m up link. Some of the newer games can use 1m by themselves if you turn on certain options. Skype video conference by itself can easily use 1m even when it is set to pretty low quality rates. It would need 3-4m to run it at 1080.

Although you could fix this type of problem with some router QoS.....not sure about yours. The main question you need to ask is should you even attempt it. QoS does not magically create more bandwidth. It pretty much just decides who is NOT going to get bandwidth. So someone will get poor performance it just electronically decides who. This is really no different than walking down the hall and saying get off your stuff because I want to use the internet.

The only real solution is more upload bandwidth from your ISP. I would be looking for at least 5m up if you can get it.

 

[Spiffy McBang]

I wanted to play with QoS because it's a no-lose possibility. Either it fixes the problem or we're in the same situation as before. Also, in looking up some stats, it appears SC2 and League of Legends each use less than 10 KBps up, which is less than 10% of what's available, so if I can figure out a way to make QoS work it's worth the experiment.

You're right, though, higher upload would be preferable. I'm pretty sure it's not available, but if this keeps being problematic I may inquire more specifically.

 

[bill001g]

I doubt your router has the feature the high,medium low stuff is worthless you need to be able to set fixed rates. The only way you make it "work" is to degrade his video conferencing app.

Pretty much it is going to come down to who pays for the internet is who wins. If it is split equally then you would need to put in QoS rules that restrict each person to that % of the bandwidth.

 

[jsmithepa]

I give QOS a try. Is NEVER enough, QOS should impose some ORDER, FAIRNESS.

I agree the prob is upload, because 20m down should be enough, but even while downloading, TCP/IP needs to ACK, so when the upload pipe is congested, your ACK packet is prevented from working in a timely manner. No ACK, download stops even if you have a large download pipe.

Meanwhile, you can ask roommate if he's willing to lower his conferencing video quality. Lowers bits needed.

 

[Spiffy McBang]

I appreciate all the replies. Went so far as to discuss it with tech support and the lady said the best option is a second DSL line. Hopefully it won't come to that.

 

[Luminary]

No problem.

As above unless you're able to get a new line the best single thing would be to try and plan around eachother's heavy usage. Get a rough schedule going to avoid everyone maxing out the bandwidth at the same time.