Best Cake settings for 5G Home Internet

[leonftw]

What are the best Cake QOS settings (WAN packet overhead values) for 5G Home Internet (Verizon 5G or others)?

Currently running a RT-AX58U with Merlin. I know 5G is unpredictable but if I put in manual bandwidth caps that are very conservative (50%-60%) what would be good WAN packet overhead values?

Thanks.

 

[Morris]

If you want to give up that much bandwidth cake will work well unless the available bandwidth drops below that value. The other settings will have little effect, ethernet or just leave it 0 should work.

 

[Tech9]

The main issue with 5G connections is variable latency depending on cell tower load. End device (router) can't fix that with any QoS.

 

[heysoundude]

Yeah, like @Tech9 said: why bother with QoS in that scenario?

 

[STRUZZIN]

I have both Verizon 5G and T-Mobile 5G service.
I have a Merlin AX58U router on each one.
There was no benefit at all using that on my end.
You can always try and see if it helps.
However the tower could good at that time then bad later.
I ran both for a while it was best (for me) to just leave it off.

 

[Tech9]

Mobile Internet has to be considered as Plan B option after all other fiber, coax, copper options. I would pay more for consistent FTTC + copper.

 

[STRUZZIN]

Mobile Internet has to be considered as Plan B option after all other fiber, coax, copper options. I would pay more for consistent FTTC + copper.

I would for sure be on fiber / cable but sadly do not have those options.

 

[sfx2000]

Mobile Internet has to be considered as Plan B option after all other fiber, coax, copper options. I would pay more for consistent FTTC + copper.

Not everyone has that luxury (actually a necessity for most) of having fixed line broadband (DSL, Cable, FTTH) - 5G Fixed Wireless can be the difference of having broadband or not...

With Cake SQM - the challenge with 5G-FWA is the variability of both bandwidth and latency - it can change from hour to hour, and the consistency can vary a lot depending on what towers the modem is accessing.

With T-Mobile Home Internet, I've had better luck with IPv6 over IPv4, as T-Mobile is IPv6 only on the wireless LTE/5G network, and they use 464XLAT for IPv4 (which is similar but not the same as CGNAT).

 

[Gar]

What are the best Cake QOS settings (WAN packet overhead values) for 5G Home Internet (Verizon 5G or others)?

Currently running a RT-AX58U with Merlin. I know 5G is unpredictable but if I put in manual bandwidth caps that are very conservative (50%-60%) what would be good WAN packet overhead values?

Thanks.

If you choose Automatic in the Cake menu does it change parameters dynamically as it runs? Or does it just determine settings once when it first initializes? Might be worth a try in Automatic if it can sense changes.

 

[Morris]

If you choose Automatic in the Cake menu does it change parameters dynamically as it runs? Or does it just determine settings once when it first initializes? Might be worth a try in Automatic if it can sense changes.

Automatic dose not work well. Use a value a few percent below the measured bandwidth. Once you get it working, you can experiment with smaller percentages.

 

[Gar]

Automatic dose not work well. Use a value a few percent below the measured bandwidth. Once you get it working, you can experiment with smaller percentages.

Manual definitely works better. From a steady B to A now.

 

[DocUmibozu]

Mobile Internet has to be considered as Plan B option after all other fiber, coax, copper options. I would pay more for consistent FTTC + copper.

It depends...
Here in my country in Europe, if you don't have FTTH you can chose between a 55/20 fttc and a 450/50 5g connection. Ping Is 10 for the fttc, 35 for the 5g.

 

[JGrana]

All this talk about FTTH has me quite sad again. The United States is probably one of the worst when it comes to truly high speed (and affordable) internet outside of metro areas.
When I lived in Rochester NY, all you had was DSL from AT&T or cable from Spectrum. At least the cable speed I got were pretty solid 300Mbit/sec.
Oddly at my remote cabin in the Adirondack area, Verizon ran FTTH to my cabin!!! Some kind of US and NY State grant. I get a solid 300Mb/sec for $35/month.

I moved to Northern California. The supposed Tech Center of the US Universe. Silicon Valley, land of Apple and Qualcomm and Google.

Imagine my surprise when I learned the best I got to my house in Redding CA was - get this - 10Mb/sec DSL… No cable no fiber. Not enough houses in my area (there is maybe 20 in a square mile.

Not to be deterred, I put in Starlink. Sometimes good, sometimes bad - especially in the evening when streaming.
Got a T-Mobile 5G gateway. A little more even speeds than Starlink, but still lots of peaks and valleys.
In both cases the erratic latencies and in the case of T-Mobile, packet loss makes using any kid of QoS impossible.

Here are some spdmerlin graphs of both:

T-Mobile:


And Starlink:


I don’t want to hear anymore complaining about QoS when you are getting 500Mb+ speeds!!!!

 

[DocUmibozu]

I don’t want to hear anymore complaining about QoS when you are getting 500Mb+ speeds!!!!

Also because QOS at that speed in a SOHO environment is useless....
But the OP wasn't complaining, was asking how to QOS a FWA connection... 5G is not always associated with big speeds.
Just an example: this summer I went to Canary Island (Gran Canaria). There my cellphone picked up a 5g signal from a saturated Vodafone B28 BTS (700mhz frequency, 10mhz bandwidth)... Well, the speed was an incredible 5/6 mb. QOS is a must in that condition.
Were I live, Italy, you can have 5g from N78 BTS (3400mhz frequency, 80mhz bandwidth) and the speed is 400-800mb. QOS is useless.

 

[coxhaus]

Not everyone has that luxury (actually a necessity for most) of having fixed line broadband (DSL, Cable, FTTH) - 5G Fixed Wireless can be the difference of having broadband or not...

With Cake SQM - the challenge with 5G-FWA is the variability of both bandwidth and latency - it can change from hour to hour, and the consistency can vary a lot depending on what towers the modem is accessing.

With T-Mobile Home Internet, I've had better luck with IPv6 over IPv4, as T-Mobile is IPv6 only on the wireless LTE/5G network, and they use 464XLAT for IPv4 (which is similar but not the same as CGNAT).

So tell me how does T-Mobile Home Internet stack up against Starlink. I have couple of friends with Starlink and it is not bad but it does have latency associated with it. And the data rate varies depending on time of day.
I don't know anybody with T-Mobile Home Internet.

 

[sfx2000]

TMHI is good enough for most folks...

Download bandwidth can vary widely, and latency is higher than what one would see on DSL or Cable, but it's not problematic for most...

I've only used starlink once, so I'm not really at odds to talk about pro's and con's of the service - from what I'm told, it's also "good enough" if that is the only option available.