Bandwidth Control on LAN

[AlexHaden]

Hi all,

have been hunting around for an answer, and think I understand that it’s probably possible, but thought I would check...

I’m with sky, 80/20, and actually get that. I have the sky router with its Wi-Fi off, connected into a BT Whole Home Mesh, big brick walls, only way I can get decent signal. And it works.

the problem I have, is that when a PC is downloading a game or streaming video, it uses the full 80mb, leaving every other device struggling.

I know that QOS doesn’t work the other side in the WAN, but is there any way I can set rules on “something” that could limit a that PC to 20mb, so the others get a chance?

as I’m not worried about a routers Wi-Fi capability, was thinking of ditching the sky router for a TPlink Archer vr2800, and just using the bandwidth control functionality.

it also has two more lan ports than the sky router, so I could also ditch my netgear switch.!

What do people think? Bonkers? Fairly sensible?
Thanks

 

[Trip]

What you're referring to is possible and it's called Rate Limiting; bandwidth limitations applied per-client, per access point and/or per SSID across multiple APs. You'll need to figure out if your BT Whole Home Mesh supports it; if not, you'll need a substitute product that allows for such control. Some whole-house products such as Netgear Orbi and TP-Link Deco may support it, but I'm not sure.

That said, rate limiting alone won't stop you from potentially re-saturating your 80/20 line if you get enough clients all streaming at whatever "limited" speed you've set. You would then have to lower the global limit, set it on a per-client basis and/or use old-school traffic classing to try preserve QoS -- all of which are somewhat outmoded approaches given the fact that what is really going on is most likely bufferbloat on the WAN interface, since your LAN's internal network speed can easily overfill the buffers on your 80Mb/20Mb WAN. In this case, while having a quality wireless access layer is still important, you'd also want a router/gateway capable of smart-queue management (SQM).

Running SQM on your home router can be done in a variety of ways; it just mostly depends on your skill level. On the novice end, a lot of out-of-the-box options are unfortunately not available in the UK (IQRouter, Eero), but Netgate pfSense appliances should be (they offer UK plugs, too). I'd look into the SG-1100. Combining something like that with your wireless solution (be that the BT mesh system or something else) should ultimately smooth out your QoS issues.

Hope some of that helps!

 

[AlexHaden]

cheers! Thank you. Very helpful

does the sg11 just sit between my sky router and my switch? Ie an extra box?

Was doing some late night surfing, and found the EERO mesh has SQM, so replacing the whole home mesh with Eero might be a cheap solution!

 

[Trip]

Ideally, the SG-1100 would replace your Sky router, or at least its routing functionality. If such a config were possible, you'd want to put your Sky gateway into "bridge mode", effectively turning it into a modem / fiber gateway only (if that piece is still required), which would then pass the raw connection to the SG-1100, itself taking care of routing, firewall, SQM QoS, etc. From there, you'd wired the SG-1100 into your whole-house mesh system, which in turn would also be set into "bridge" or "AP" mode, so that it was just effectively acting as a wireless access layer and nothing else.

If Eero is available in the UK now, you could actually kill 2 birds with one stone, and then some, running it as both the router (in place of the SG-1100) and whole-home mesh (in place of the BT system). Additionally, you likely wouldn't have to worry about even monkeying with per-client bandwidth limits, nor any kind of manually-classified QoS, as Eero runs SQM between nodes and on the WAN, all done automatically; all you have to do is turn it on. In terms of specific Eero models, I'm always partial to the full-blown Eero Pro tri-band units, as opposed to Eero dual-band or Eero + Beacons, for wired backhaul capability and the extra 5Ghz radio on all units; in layman's terms, Eero Pro equals the best experience possible for the entire household at all times.

 

[AlexHaden]

Thanks again, really appreciate the help

Im currently leaning towards to Eero pro, sounds like it may be the easiest option, the only thing giving me pause, is wifi6, will a new version be released soon with that, if I’m going to fork out 400+ pounds, I don’t want to have to do it again when wifi 6 becomes more mainstream.

the other curve ball option, is I was thinking of upgrading my Qnap to a 4 bay nas. For the same price as Eero pro, I could get a qnap that can run virtualisation, and run PFSense, and have the NAS doing the work, and just stick with the whole home as it’s wifi is fine.....sounds totally insane the more I think about that one though, doesn’t sound “easy”

 

[Trip]

I probably wouldn't converge your network storage and router into the same consumer-class NAS; that's more eggs in one basket than you'll likely see any real benefit from; in fact, it may just be inviting trouble -- if either goes offline, you loose the other, etc.

Regarding 802.11ax, you can do your own due-diligence, but just know that we're still a ways off from even being at draft 1, so right now it's all pre-draft hardware and drivers, which may not be able to be patched up to draft-1 AX and its defining feature set (OFDMA, etc.) once they come of age. Until then, the benefits of moving to AX in its current form are minimal, at best, while you're paying through the nose for them regardless. Long story short, you can never really "future proof" yourself, and this is no exception. Stick with proven AC Wave 2 gear and take solace in knowing that not being on the "bleeding edge" is somewhat doing yourself a favor here.

 

[AlexHaden]

very good points! Thank you! I suddenly remembered years ago, buying an AC router as soon as it was out and I think AC was still in draft at that point as well - Had major problems (it was Linksys).

thank you for all your pointers, off to buy a three pack of the Eero pro