 digiblurGot Sipura?Premium
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana | [Equipment] My solution for in QOS for VOIP
Gotta love it! |
There have been a few problems with some releases of the firmware but thats to be expected. Right now I'm testing his 2.00.8.7 beta firmware and I'm loving it. Here is my test of the bandwidth management:
I have a 3000/256 cable modem connection. I turned on the bandwidth management in the WRT54G and set my downlink to 2800 and uplink to 228 just be on the safe side. I set port 119 to the low priority destination port and source port since I will be testing this with newsgroup transfers. I started downloading some files using 4 streams, pulling about 190k a second. I then started uploading some files via newsgroups, attempting to "flood" the upstream. Then, just for kicks, I pulled up my 128kbps streaming radio that I always listen to. I picked up the Packet8 phone and started a conversation. I would have never attempted this before, especially with a full stream upload going. I talked on the phone for at least 20 minutes. I was amazed! The conversation never missed a beat. The other party on the phone also said my voice never missed a beat either. It's great! I'll never have to worry about what I'm transferring on my network again.
I then disabled the bandwidth management in the WRT54G and started the same test. As expected I was unable to hold a conversation due to the VOIP breaking up.
I was so excited about my VOIP solution for under $100 I ran the same two tests, this time I let ping plotter run in the background. Look at the timeline at 11:16, I started the upload and download, the pings were all over the place hitting up to around 500ms. VOIP was not usable. At 11:23 I renabled the bandwidth management and rebooted the router, hence the 100% packet loss. I then restarted the upload and download. The pings had a little jitter to them but they stayed under 100 ms and VOIP was usable all while the upload was getting slammed. |
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jgwilliamsPremium,VIP
join:2003-09-16
Chesterland, OH | When you had the bandwidth management in place what was your actual upload / download speeds?
Also is this dynamic? When I say that what I mean is do you have access to all of your bandwidth, or nearly all of it until you get on the phone, then the throttling begins?
--
Jeffery Williams
President
Broadvox Direct, Llc
evp; Broadvox, Llc
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digiblurGot Sipura?Premium
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana | said by jgwilliams:
When you had the bandwidth management in place what was your actual upload / download speeds?
With the full stream upload:
2004-01-18 03:17:54 EST: 2179 / 167
Your download speed : 2179675 bps, or 2179 kbps.
A 266 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 167294 bps, or 167 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!
Without any activity:
2004-01-18 03:20:15 EST: 2949 / 222
Your download speed : 2949854 bps, or 2949 kbps.
A 360 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 222593 bps, or 222 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!
said by jgwilliams:
Also is this dynamic? When I say that what I mean is do you have access to all of your bandwidth, or nearly all of it until you get on the phone, then the throttling begins?
Yes... the program I use to post shows the all of the upstream being used and it looks like the it backs off a little when the phone is being used.
I can tell a big difference with browsing too...usually my browsing would be laggy when uploading but now I don't hardly notice it.
I'm going to do some more test tomorrow with NTP set at low priority and FTP not set as low. Going to see what happens... the ultimate test will be running an upload and let the girlfriend use the phone..or like some of you call it the "wife test". |
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| reply to digiblur
Keep us posted. I'm also hooked right now, but will have to wait for a while for my next US visit before I can get a Linksys WRT54G. If only I knew about this last month!! I was in Cleveland and picked up several WAP11s, two BEFW11S4 and a BEFSR81. I almost picked up a WRT54G instead of one of the BEFW11S4. Grrr.
How do you reserve bandwidth? Is it by IP address, Ports or The Physical Ethernet Port on the router?
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but the firmware allows full use of the bandwidth for other activities, scaling back only when you use your VoIP service. Correct?
Thanks for the head's up.
Spock |
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| reply to digiblur
This is ver cool. In my opinion, bandwidth management is the only way to go for VoIP. I'm not talking about the cheap way Motorola implemented it on the VT1005, I'm talking about implementation on the router. This and other solutions by ZyXel and other vendors make a load of difference in voice quality. |
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jgwilliamsPremium,VIP
join:2003-09-16
Chesterland, OH | reply to digiblur
SetiSpcock, you were in Cleveland? That is where we are located. Where are you from? Do you visit Cleveland often?
Digiblur, I have a BEFSR81 and have had problems with the device not responding some times. This has nothing to do with VoIP it locks up just browsing.
In any event, will this firmware you are speaking of work on my device as well? Can you tell me where to obtain it?
--
Jeffery Williams
President
Broadvox Direct, Llc
evp; Broadvox, Llc
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| reply to jgwilliams
Yes, the throttling is dynamic. There are basically four classes of service ranging from fast, somewhat fast, a little slow, and bulk.
When no higher ranking services are being used then even the bulk class services can use the whole bandwidth. This adjusts dynamically so if new services/sockets are opened the lower priority stuff will give up bandwidth to the higher.
We are planning to make this more configurable than it currently is and appreciate any feedback given. |
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jgwilliamsPremium,VIP
join:2003-09-16
Chesterland, OH | Will this firmware work with my BEFSR81? |
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| No, sorry. It's only for the WRT54G. |
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 sesatPremium
join:2003-12-16
Oakland, CA | reply to digiblur
Congratulations James, on the good work!
Wow. Much cheaper than my Soekris solution! |
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| reply to jgwilliams
Jgwilliams,
Yes I was in Cleveland most of December and even enjoyed the few surprisingly warm days! Before this visit I used to live & work in Cleveland, or rather, I used to live in Mayfield Heights and Work in Warrensville Heights. I moved to India in August '03. I know you're based in Cleveland which is one of the reasons I've been following BVD ever since you started posting in these forums. I even considered signing up for your service with the beta launch but missed it. I was seriously considering dropping in to your office in person to sign up instead. My next visit will probably be in 6 months time.
The WRT54G runs Linux as the embedded firmware. Being GPL, Linksys had to release the source code which others have modified to add features. Unfortunately the BEFSR81 uses a proprietary, closed source, firmware so it's not possible to do the same. Like I mentioned in this thread I have the same router. I've also started to notice the same problem that you have, slowing down of net connection which rebooting solves.
Spock |
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jgwilliamsPremium,VIP
join:2003-09-16
Chesterland, OH | I lived in Mayfield Hts for a few years when I got married, 14 years ago. I live in Chesterland now, just past Gates Mills.
You are welcome to stop in and visit, we can show you around. You would not be able to sign up in the office however, there is no one to take an order, and the call center people, spread across a couple of offices can not leave the call queue.
I am going to see if I can get a WRT54G today, I have downloaded this custom firmware and I am very interested in checking it out.
--
Jeffery Williams
President
Broadvox Direct, Llc
evp; Broadvox, Llc
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| reply to SetiSpock
Rats! I just bought a BEFSR81 yesterday. I haven't seen the slowdown problem yet. This never happened with my BEFSR41.
How does it work otherwise for giving priority to your VoIP traffic? |
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jgwilliamsPremium,VIP
join:2003-09-16
Chesterland, OH | Priority works well.
Just keeps locking up |
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HooperPremium
join:2001-10-22
Villanova, PA | reply to digiblur
I have to say this is really cool... both that you can do traffic shaping and that Linksys built a router with an open source code. Maybe I will pick one of these up, but first I have to get rid of my two other wireless routers!
With an open source, now folks can even fix bugs in the firmware by themselves. This is huge as one of the reasons I stayed away from Linksys after owning one of their befsr41 routers was that each firmware fixed one bug and added several more! |
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digiblurGot Sipura?Premium
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana | reply to digiblur
The BEFSR81 doesn't compare at all to the WRT54G with Sveasoft's firmware.
From what I gather the bandwidth shaper wasn't working correctly in the .6 version of the firmware so make sure you have the .7 release. Currently its labelsd "Satori_v2_2.00.8.7sv-pre1.bin.zip".
Here's a screen shot of the bandwidth management page.
If anyone needs any help in flashing their WRT54G and/or setting up the new firmware feel free to PM me. |
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| reply to digiblur
Digiblur,
When you said "It [BEFSR81]worked ok but it just wasn't totally what I was looking for", what wasn't it doing? I have a simple network, but am testing BVD and noticed when sending large emails (10M photo attachments) - the uplink voice was really choppy. Currently have 1700/256 connection with Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router and was hoping for a simple solution of the BEFSR81. Not looking for a lot of QOS other than giving higher priority to the Sipura's connection. |
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jgwilliamsPremium,VIP
join:2003-09-16
Chesterland, OH | I can tell you from my experience the BEFSR81 does a great job of managing upload bandwidth, until it locks up  It seems to do this a couple times per day.
--
Jeffery Williams
President
Broadvox Direct, Llc
evp; Broadvox, Llc
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digiblurGot Sipura?Premium
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana | reply to daphney85
said by daphney85:
Digiblur,
When you said "It [BEFSR81]worked ok but it just wasn't totally what I was looking for", what wasn't it doing? I have a simple network, but am testing BVD and noticed when sending large emails (10M photo attachments) - the uplink voice was really choppy. Currently have 1700/256 connection with Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router and was hoping for a simple solution of the BEFSR81. Not looking for a lot of QOS other than giving higher priority to the Sipura's connection.
I did the same thing as you, I picked up a BEFSR81 thinking it would end all of my problems. I took the port that the VOIP was connected to and set it as high priority and set all the others as low. It helped out a little bit but if I had any P2P apps, uploading email, uploading digital pics, posting on the newsgroups, etc..my VOIP was unusable. I was constantly looking for ways to throttle stuff back but it was just a big hastle so I just had to work around my heavy bandwidth usage. The downloading was never an issue with my setup, it was the upload.
If you are going to be purchasing anything I would highly recommend purchasing a WRT54G and flashing it with Sveasoft's firmware(its free). You will be much happier! I could have never uploaded full stream and talk on the phone at the same time. It's great! The thought of "what am I upload or downloading?" never runs through my head every time the phone rings.
Sveasoft has done an excellent job at bringing an excellent QOS/bandwidth management solution to the VOIP community for under a $100. |
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 tlgPremium
join:2001-08-23
Melbourne, FL | reply to jgwilliams
said by jgwilliams:
I can tell you from my experience the BEFSR81 does a great job of managing upload bandwidth, until it locks up It seems to do this a couple times per day.
Turn on the "UPnP Services" under the password tab. Whenever I turn this on I encounter these types of problems.
Turn it off & I never have have this problem.
TG |
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