Use wifi modem with SQM Router

[46godric]

So my internet have sucked for a long time, especially when someone else also is using it. After watching this video it seems as bufferbloating is the problem. I plan to buy the Edgerouter X which support Smart Queue Management. This router doesn't have any wifi though so I want to know if I can use my old modem as wifi and does this affect perfomance of the Edgerouter?


P.S
I have very little experience with networking and such so feel free to ask if it was something I didn't mention.

 

[anotherdrew]

A couple questions:
Are you using WiFi for your gaming computer? WiFi should be a last resort for a serious gamer.
What router are you using now? There might be some settings that will help.
What is your current connection speed?

The Edgerouter is a fantastic piece of equipment, but it's not going to help if you issue is elsewhere.

ping testing is a good place to start.

Open a command prompt.
type "tracert google.com". This will show you each router you have to pass through to get to google.
type "ping x.x.x.x -n50" where the x.x is the first router (this should be your router ... 192.168.1.1 or something similar).
.. This test should show no packet loss and very low time (1ms or less).
Start a youtube video and repeat the test.
type "ping x.x.x.x -n 50" where the x.x is he 2nd router (this should be your ISP's router with a public IP address .. not starting with 192, 172, or 10)
.. This test should show no packet loss and a low time (my top one was 30, most were 16ms)
Start a youtube video and repeat the test.

Let us know what you find out.

As to your original question ... you probably can use your modem to do WiFi ... give us the model number and we can check.

 

[46godric]

A couple questions:
Are you using WiFi for your gaming computer? WiFi should be a last resort for a serious gamer.
What router are you using now? There might be some settings that will help.
What is your current connection speed?

The Edgerouter is a fantastic piece of equipment, but it's not going to help if you issue is elsewhere.

ping testing is a good place to start.

Open a command prompt.
type "tracert google.com". This will show you each router you have to pass through to get to google.
type "ping x.x.x.x -n50" where the x.x is the first router (this should be your router ... 192.168.1.1 or something similar).
.. This test should show no packet loss and very low time (1ms or less).
Start a youtube video and repeat the test.
type "ping x.x.x.x -n 50" where the x.x is he 2nd router (this should be your ISP's router with a public IP address .. not starting with 192, 172, or 10)
.. This test should show no packet loss and a low time (my top one was 30, most were 16ms)
Start a youtube video and repeat the test.

Let us know what you find out.

As to your original question ... you probably can use your modem to do WiFi ... give us the model number and we can check.

No, I don't use wifi for gaming. My router is the ZyXEL P-2601HN-F1. I'll test the other things when I can access my PC tomorrow. I also did the test that the guy in the video tipsed about on dslreports.com and got a C in bufferbloat. And according to him A or A+ is the "only acceptable grades".

EDIT: I've ~5mb/s down and ~0,3mb/s up. Ik it sucks but this is really just a temporary solution since I will get better internet in about 3 months.

 

[anotherdrew]

Ok ... lots of stuff.

1. Your router is a router/modem. As well as doing NAT, firewall, security, DHCP, etc it also converts your ethernet packets to be compatible with your ADSL service. It has no WAN port, but instead a RJ11 that your phone line plugs into. Without this box (or another modem) you will not get service. Now, the box does let you bypass the router part and just use it as a modem, but I would expect this render the WiFi unusable. Bottom line, if you bought an Edgerouter, you would also have to buy and ADSL modem OR a wifi access point.

2. Bufferbloat occurs when you feed packets into a device faster than it can process them. If you see bufferbloat on your download, then the internet is feeding you packets faster than your router can deal with them. This would be a huge problem. But, any router made in the last 5 years (except maybe the cheapest piece of crap out there) can handle 5 Mbps. My guess is your getting bufferbloat on the upload. This actually makes sense. During the test we ask the harddrive to feed data up to a server as fast as it can. A slow harddrive can do 500 Mbps and your trying to squeeze that into a .3 Mbps connection. Guess what, it's gonna fill your buffers. The good news is that the game we play don't actually use that much bandwidth and that's why your fine when you're home alone. But then, just as in the video, someone else gets online and tries to upload all the new selfies from their phone and it overloads the router. There are 2 solutions ... 1. get so much bandwidth that other people can't overload it and ... 2. Limit how much bandwidth other people can use.

3. How do we limit how much bandwidth other people can use? Generally, this is referred to as QoS (Quality of Service). QoS (which SQM is part of) allows some internet traffic to get priority over other traffic. Good news is that your router does QoS (and it way more customizable than a lot of routers I have seen). Chapter 10 of your owners manual describes it all.

So, before spending your hard earned money, let me encourage you to read Chapter 10. Turn on QoS (I would guess it's off now) and see if you can't create some rules that give your games priority over other people. See if it helps with your bufferbloat (there are buffer management settings). And in the end, if it does not help go buy an Edgerouter ... but remember, if your ISP is giving you crappy internet (lots of lag and variable speed) the best hardware in the world won't fix it.

Edit :: was monitoring my son while he was playing a game ... he was using 0.08 Mbps down and 0.01 Mbps up

 

[46godric]

A couple questions:
Are you using WiFi for your gaming computer? WiFi should be a last resort for a serious gamer.
What router are you using now? There might be some settings that will help.
What is your current connection speed?

The Edgerouter is a fantastic piece of equipment, but it's not going to help if you issue is elsewhere.

ping testing is a good place to start.

Open a command prompt.
type "tracert google.com". This will show you each router you have to pass through to get to google.
type "ping x.x.x.x -n50" where the x.x is the first router (this should be your router ... 192.168.1.1 or something similar).
.. This test should show no packet loss and very low time (1ms or less).
Start a youtube video and repeat the test.
type "ping x.x.x.x -n 50" where the x.x is he 2nd router (this should be your ISP's router with a public IP address .. not starting with 192, 172, or 10)
.. This test should show no packet loss and a low time (my top one was 30, most were 16ms)
Start a youtube video and repeat the test.

Let us know what you find out.

As to your original question ... you probably can use your modem to do WiFi ... give us the model number and we can check.

After typing 'tracert google.com' this was my results:
1 4 ms 8 ms 8 ms 192.168.1.254
2 45 ms 45 ms 41 ms gw1-no41.bredband.skanova.com [81.230.25.193]
3 46 ms 49 ms 55 ms ld-h-peer4-link.se.telia.net [81.228.88.127]
4 25 ms 18 ms 29 ms kbn-b2-link.telia.net [62.115.123.162]
5 22 ms 27 ms 27 ms kbn-bb3-link.telia.net [62.115.123.176]
6 26 ms 43 ms 45 ms s-bb3-link.telia.net [62.115.121.64]
7 116 ms 90 ms 98 ms s-b5-link.telia.net [62.115.114.169]
8 22 ms 27 ms 37 ms google-ic-314684-s-b5.c.telia.net [62.115.61.30]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 37 ms 23 ms 32 ms 209.85.242.11
11 26 ms 28 ms 28 ms arn11s03-in-f14.1e100.net [172.217.21.174]



Then I typed 'ping 192.168.1.254 -n 50' and here is the results:
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.254:
Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 50, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 7ms, Average = 1ms



Typing 'ping gw1-no41.bredband.skanova.com -n 50' without youtube video:
Ping statistics for 81.230.25.193:
Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 48, Lost = 2 (4% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 7ms, Maximum = 175ms, Average = 63ms


Typing 'ping gw1-no41.bredband.skanova.com -n 50' with youtube video:
Ping statistics for 81.230.25.193:
Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 45, Lost = 5 (10% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 7ms, Maximum = 151ms, Average = 88ms


I did read Chapter 10 in the manual but didn't actually manage to find the options that it showed.
Though I did find this in the 'Wireless LAN' tab but I don't think if that is what I'm looking for.

 

[anotherdrew]

Some good information there.

First off, your local connection is good. No packet loss and a 1ms average return time.
Your connection to your ISP, is less good. With a minimum of 7 you can obviously get there and back very quickly. My minimum is double of that, but the maximum and average are high and packet loss is of 4% is high, but 10% is is unacceptable. Clearly gw1-no41.bredband.skanova.com is a busy router and as we talked about above, busy routers can have bufferbloat (when input is higher than throughput).

I was looking at this user guide ... ftp://ftp.zyxel.com/P-2601HNL-F1/user_guide/P-2601HNL-F1_3.10_ed1.pdf
You may have a different firmware version or if you got the modem/router from your ISP they may have done a custom user interface.

So, the Edgerouter ... it is still a very good piece of hardware. To use it you will still need to get either a ADSL modem that works with your service or a WiFi access point. Getting it will unfortunately not fix issues with the gw1-no41 router. Your ISP will need to spend some money to get something better. Unfortunately, faster service may not fix this either (unless you're moving to another ISP or they move you to different equipment).

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.