Does smart traffic management (by router) cause decreased performance?

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Batman

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#207522 31-Dec-2016 08:08

Hi I've been testing a couple of routers - mid end ones (higher end of the mid end), they have things like smart connect, advanced QOS, media prioritization, for example.

I find that if I activate them, a couple of things happen. I get consistently lower speeds with speedtest. It breaks half my i-devices!

However, I recall that on my budget routers (HG659/b), if I didn't enable QOS/WWM or something, my laptop won't connect at AC speeds ...

SO. I'm confused! Just running the expensive routers with everything turned off :) Is that the right thing to do?

[Devices - without guests present max 3-4 devices connected, half streaming, half surfing/downloading/uploading backups, updates, and what nots. Max number of guests usually don't exceed 10 but they all surf and stream at the same time.]

Oh that reminds me I have another rant about devices - my iphone's wifi transfers data at nrealy twice the speed of any laptop in my house. Everything is backwards in life!

Hammerer

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#1696723 31-Dec-2016 09:52

This issue comes up regularly. If you have a banwidth issue then QOS doesn't have much chance of helping you.

Read this topic for more info: QOS settings

Batman

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#1696734 31-Dec-2016 10:12

I don't have a bandwidth issue. On Giga UFB, getting 940/440 at best, 900/390 Mbps at worst. Can transfer data within network at max spinning drive speeds, around 90MB/s

But when I use traffic management, all these speeds drop. For example an ipad can do 400/300, with traffic management it reduces to 120/80. Literally like the router putting on brakes saying WHOA SLOW DOWN! I thought traffic management means optimizing everyone's traffic to get the most out of the system but obviously not. That I can understand, but I was querying because on the Huawei I actually had to activate something to get more speed.

Thanks

Also, with a tri-band router, I thought smart connect means it connects devices to the best band, but that also all comes to a halt, it's like a hiring a 6 year old kid to direct Auckland MOtorway 1 traffic.

RunningMan

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#1696740 31-Dec-2016 10:48

In very simple terms, traffic management is likely to slow most things down, most of the time. At the basic level implemented in consumer routers, bandwidth will be reserved for each type of traffic, with some held in reserve.

Generally, it will be designed so that any given type of traffic can't hog the connection at the expense of everything else, but overall, time critical traffic (VoIP etc.) gets through, and other stuff may get delayed.

Your laptop not connecting at AC speed is not likely to be related to QoS.

Batman

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#1696743 31-Dec-2016 10:57

Thanks good I've turned all the smart things off. Getting very good speeds.

I think the thing that the laptop needed to connect at AC speed was something called "WDM" -

Linux

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#1696744 31-Dec-2016 10:59

You answered your own question

Linux

Batman

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#1696745 31-Dec-2016 11:05

Linux: You answered your own question

Linux

I just wanted to confirm that the "smart" features are gimmicks.

sbiddle

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#1696750 31-Dec-2016 11:42

Routing at Gigabit requires a *lot* of resources. The simple reality is many routers on the market are incapable of delivering this sort of performance. Even in the enterprise space you pay a lot of money to get something that can do this.

Whenever you start adding features such as QoS etc it normally requires offloading traffic to the CPU which is why speeds take such a huge hit.

Because Gigabit connections are so rare around the world manufacturers are a long way behind, and I don't expect a lot to change any time soon. In other places in the world where Gigabit exists it's normally a fully managed service so people don't go and try their own routers.

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Batman

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#1696754 31-Dec-2016 11:56

That's what I wondered, the routers come with a 1GHz cpu and I went - huh, really?

freitasm

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#1696755 31-Dec-2016 11:56

Synology has launched their new router, RT2600ac - including in New Zealand. I am currently running their previous model but they will send the new one early in January. The new version has a more powerful CPU and a hardware acceleration engine.

On the current hardware there's an Intrusion Detection Feature - turn that on and you will see speeds drop by a third at least. Curious to see how it works on the new box. I don't leave QoS running on the box though as all our devices are very similar (laptops, smartphones and two streaming boxes) and with current gigabit speeds they don't all use the max bandwidth anyway.

webwat

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#1697883 3-Jan-2017 14:33

Yes of course, the more intensively you manage the traffic the more your router's CPU power gets diverted to managing rather than transmitting the data.

Time to find a new industry!

Ragnor

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#1698666 5-Jan-2017 02:36

The purpose of good QoS is to stop users who are say torrenting or streaming video hogging/saturating all the upload or download bandwidth and negatively impacting the responsiveness of latency sensitive stuff like gaming and voip. This is less of a problem with faster internet connections like fibre but it all depends on what your users are doing.

Yes QoS on consumer grade routers is generally total crap.

Personally I've had good success with open source third party firmware: Gargoyle Router and Tomato USB (Shibby version or Advanced Tomato) specifically. You have to use hardware they support and be comfortable with flashing the firmware and voiding any warranty but the QoS systems are a lot better. Generally the hardware is cheap enough like the TP Link TL-WR1043ND or Acher C7 and there are good guides or at least forum posts to follow.

Unfortunately those options are generally only good up to ~100Mbit NAT throughput though (depending on the hardware), so with fibre you need to look at business grade routers like the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter or Mikrotik. These have a steeper learning curve and you need to understand a fair bit about networking to set them up so there isn't an easy solution.

Pfsense is an option too if you want to DIY the hardware, friendly web ui but you still need to know a fair bit or networking to get going.