Netgear R7500 Firmware 1.0.0.82 Enhanced Dymanic QOS Update Experience

[bobsilver]

I recently updated my R7500 to the latest 1.0.0.82 firmware. This firmware was most noted for enhancements to the 5ghz AC performance as well as many bug fixes.

One of the things less talked about was the enhancement to the Dynamic QOS feature. When released the Dynamic QOS was a set it and forget it feature. No user adjustments available. If it worked for you great. If not turn it off. There was no way to edit by device.

The Dynamic QOS looks at device, application and data type. For many things this works well. Netflix streaming as an example. But certain devices weren't as clear to it and and needed manual intervention.

The .82 release now adds this capability to the R7500. It now provides a real time view of your device list and what device is using bandwidth and how much. You then can go in and edit the device and the priority if you need to.

In my case I have a slow DSL at 2.4mbs. This means that when streaming nothing else can really go on less I get stuttering and other ill effects. Prior to this release video always worked well as it easily understood by the Dynamic QOS algorithm . But I recently signed up with Deezer FLAC music streaming through my Sonos. Even with the Dynamic QOS of the initial release I often got freezes in my streaming with Deezer which often requires more then 1mbs download bandwidth when my wife used her ipad to watch a YouTube or something. This completely ruined the experience to the point I was going to cancel Deezer (which I like very much).

Well since the .82 update I was able to see exactly what was going on in my network through the real time monitoring. From that I was able to set my Sonos zone that I play Deezer through to the highest priority. I was then able to see what my wife was doing and turn her ipad down a notch. I can now stream Deezer without any hickups. When the Sonos requires more bandwidth you can see it rise while her ipad gets less. Its pretty magical and for me solves a huge problem I didnt think I could solve.

Firmware V1.0.0.82 has gotten very good feedback. But for me the biggest bump is the Dynamic QOS enhancements. If you have an R7500 and havent updated I suggest you do.

For R8000 users the Dynamic QOS feature is coming to you as well in a firmware update expected soon

Bob Silver
Netgear Advisor

 

[microchip]

what about the R7000?

 

[bobsilver]

what about the R7000?

There is an update with feature enhancements for the R7000 but will not include the Dynamic QOS at this time. It is as I have been told the plan to add it but the priority was to get it in the R8000 first.

Bob Silver
Netgear Networking Advisor

 

[bkayrac]

There is an update with feature enhancements for the R7000 but will not include the Dynamic QOS at this time. It is as I have been told the plan to add it but the priority was to get it in the R8000 first.

Bob Silver
Netgear Networking Advisor

Hi Bob,

Just picked up an r8000 for an upgrade due to my older asus having some serious 5ghz issues.

I noticed the QOS was pretty set it and forget it on the flagship. Any plans from netgear to bring it upwards to the r8000?

Thanks.

EDIT, apparently I was having trouble reading. I have now re-learned to read!

 

[NightOwl326]

Hi Bob,

Just picked up an r8000 for an upgrade due to my older asus having some serious 5ghz issues.

I noticed the QOS was pretty set it and forget it on the flagship. Any plans from netgear to bring it upwards to the r8000?

Thanks.

Does not the quote in your post answer your own question? There is no QOS in the current r8000 firmware. So What are you asking?

 

[bkayrac]

Does not the quote in your post answer your own question? There is no QOS in the current r8000 firmware. So What are you asking?

Apparently I cannot read. Even replied to this saying what I was re-asking lol

You can safely ignore my first post as I have apparently re-learned to read

 

[bobsilver]

Hi Bob,

Just picked up an r8000 for an upgrade due to my older asus having some serious 5ghz issues.

I noticed the QOS was pretty set it and forget it on the flagship. Any plans from netgear to bring it upwards to the r8000?

Thanks.

EDIT, apparently I was having trouble reading. I have now re-learned to read!

Hey I have those moments all the time

Bob

 

[sfx2000]

Bobsiilver...

Just want to mention that what you call "Dynamic QoS" actually has nothing to do with 802.11 QoS parameters.

This is market speak for "Traffic Shaping".

QoS and 802 frame tagging at the WiFi level has four levels only...

Best Effort
Background
Video
Voice

And every chipset I've observed has this - and these levels are pretty much fixed at the 802.11 level

It's totally agnostic to nodes within the BSS (Basic Service Set which is the AP plus all STA's associated with it) and is dependent on the Application to actually tag the frames with this, and for all points end to end to honor those tags...

What you're thinking about with "Dynamic QOS" is actually Policy Management and Traffic Shaping - in the 3GPP/3GPP2 world, we call this PCEF/PCRF - define the rules and then enforce based on node ID and applications. And this is at the Network/Application layers of the OSI stack...

Just want to be clear about this...

 

[bobsilver]

Bobsiilver...

Just want to mention that what you call "Dynamic QoS" actually has nothing to do with 802.11 QoS parameters.

This is market speak for "Traffic Shaping".

QoS and 802 frame tagging at the WiFi level has four levels only...

Best Effort
Background
Video
Voice

And every chipset I've observed has this - and these levels are pretty much fixed at the 802.11 level

It's totally agnostic to nodes within the BSS (Basic Service Set which is the AP plus all STA's associated with it) and is dependent on the Application to actually tag the frames with this, and for all points end to end to honor those tags...

What you're thinking about with "Dynamic QOS" is actually Policy Management and Traffic Shaping - in the 3GPP/3GPP2 world, we call this PCEF/PCRF - define the rules and then enforce based on node ID and applications. And this is at the Network/Application layers of the OSI stack...

Just want to be clear about this...

Thanks for the explanation. Not being an engineer Policy Management and Traffic Shaping were not terms I was familiar with. I used Netgear's name for this. For me it solved a big problem that the other routers I have used in my home did not.

According to Netgear though they are compiling a list of device and applications to maximize its effectiveness. Can I assume that from this data they employ Policy Management and Traffic Shaping against those identified streams?

Prior to this last update I was not able to force the router into to managing the streams the way I want. Music is number priority. Video (or anything else) number two. This was the game changer for me as a user.

Bob

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks for the explanation. Not being an engineer Policy Management and Traffic Shaping were not terms I was familiar with. I used Netgear's name for this. For me it solved a big problem that the other routers I have used in my home did not.

According to Netgear though they are compiling a list of device and applications to maximize its effectiveness. Can I assume that from this data they employ Policy Management and Traffic Shaping against those identified streams?

Prior to this last update I was not able to force the router into to managing the streams the way I want. Music is number priority. Video (or anything else) number two. This was the game changer for me as a user.

Bob

Fair enough... QoS used to be pretty simple, but in the current crop of leading edge router/AP's, it's a good time to make that distinction.

For me, since I work from home, VOIP is a critical app... with IEEE/3GPP QoS, one would think that it has priority, but the App doesn't tag the frames (well now it does, after I beat the vendor in the head) - so on my LAN/WLAN we get those tags - now I have to go to my broadband provider and get them to honor those QoS tags, as they strip them - and with QoS, if any mid-point doesn't support it, there is no QoS, everything becomes best effort..

This is QoS...

With Traffic Shaping and Policy Management - you can have Application X and Node Y to prioritize traffic to address and ports - which is what you want to play/stream audio from source A to receiver B... and to prioritize this around other traffic on the LAN/WLAN....

This has nothing to do with QoS - this is creating a policy, and then shaping the traffic according to that policy.

Hope this helps.

sfx

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
On R7500.
Make sure all clients aare active when you enable dynamic QOS. It is done right first time.