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cjfusion
| Qwest QoS with GT701 Router + VOIP
Hi,
I'm wondering if it is possible to do any QoS on my GR701 DSL router. I have a VOIP phone from the company that I work for and if I have a download or two going or I'm listening to online music and doing some remote access on computers the sound on the phone isnt that great. Is it possible to give all packets to and from the phone highest priority? Thanks. | |
christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
 ·Bresnan Online
 ·VOIPo
| No, it's not possible. At best, you can give the OUTGOING packets priority. That's because you are initiating WHEN the packets go out. Therefor, you can prioritize. However, incoming packets you have absolutely no control over whatsoever. Only your ISP and the backbone providers like level-3 can control those. In other words; if you have inbound packets such as streaming music, downloading web pages, email, voip, etc...; your router, no matter how good of quality, has absolutely no idea what those packets are until they reach your router. At which time, your router has absolutely no idea if the next pack is another voip packet or part of the streaming music you're listening to. OR, if there are ANY MORE packets coming in at all. Therefor, when your router receives a packet, it simply sends it to the local IP address on your network that it is suppose to go to. Simple as that. You have no control over inbound packets.
If you do a lot of voip, then you need to learn how to monitor your internet activity so that you aren't doing so many things at the same time while on the phone. The ISP and backbone providers CAN prioritize traffic, however with the whole "Net Neutrality" crowd whining, it doesn't appear profitable to prioritize the packets. The other solution is to use different frequencies on the bandwidth so that voice/video packets are in a sub band all their own; streaming is on another; email and surfing another. This technology is somewhat possible, but to be effective, it would have to become a standard across the internet. It isn't. Plus it would have to happen at the ISP/Backbone level. Unfortunately, there isn't any way to prioritize your packets.
The 2 closest ways to improve voip quality is to monitor your other traffic so that when voip is in use, you aren't flooding your bandwidth with additional packets. Especially streaming. Surfing is fine, but lengthy downloads of files and streaming media is a No NO. The next best thing is to have a LOT MORE BANDWIDTH and a router that is very good. Even this however isn't the ultimate answer because the distant end sending you packets such as streaming video/music usually has a very large pipe. It will send you data as fast as you can take it. So, going from 1.5/896 DSL to 20mb/896 dsl will seem the same if you are streaming XMradio or a youtube. That's because the streaming is coming from a server that can handle your 20mb, so it will simply send you more packets at the same time requiring less buffering.
Sorry, but the best thing is to stop streaming traffic while in a voip call. I currently have 5 voip systems connected to my 1.5/896 qwest DSL. They work fine. However; If I or the family is on the phone, I DON'T start large downloads or streams. Later... Mike.... | |
cjfusion
| reply to cjfusion
Hey,
Thanks for the reply. Glad to see you're from Wyoming. I'm in Colorado. Lived in Wyoming for 22 years and I still call it home!
Thanks again! | |
mrhuggles
join:2007-03-29
Ames, IA | get a router that supports openWRT + X-Wrt, its QoS is the most relevant and helpfull. | |
christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
·Bresnan Online
·VOIPo
| reply to cjfusion
A router with the Ubicom Hardware QOS chip is by far the best. Manufacturers like Zxyel, Trendnet, certain DLINKS, etc... have these routers. Some advertise it as "StreamEngine". This Hardware QOS is much better than the firmware versions. But even with this, you can still only take care of the outgoing packets. The incoming packets still come in, in the order they come in and can't be QOS'd because the router has no idea of what the next packet is. Therefor it doesn't know whether to hold it and let the next packet have priority. By slowing down some of the outgoing packets, you can slow down the response of ACKs from the returning packets, but it's still not really QOS. And if you are going to "Stream" audio and video as well as large downloads, you are still going to affect your voip packets and it's going to affect the call quality.
So, a router with the Ubicom QOS chip is definitely better than nothing, but you can't stream audio and video while trying to conduct a phone call. You will notice it. Later... Mike.... | |
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