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FlexQoS Does FlexQoS work with Full-Fibre Internet?

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TheLyppardMan

Very Senior Member
I've only been on BT's Full Fibre 500 + Halo 3 service for about 2 1/2 weeks and without any QoS enabled, I'm typically getting about 415-420 Mbps download and about 73 Mbps upload when there is no heavy use of the network (speeds reported by spdMerlin on my RT-AX88U). However, when my son uploads something from one of his apple devices, the whole upload bandwidth is used (according to the little graph I have on screen from my Networx app - see third image below) and the download speed can drop considerably, as you can see in the screenshot I have just taken. Some my questions are, should I be switching on FlexQoS, would it work at these kinds of internet speeds and would it provide any benefits? I've just taken a snapshot of what is currently connected to the network; sometimes it is more than this and sometimes less, but this example is quite typical and is usually a mixture of streaming (e.g., youtube, BBC iPlayer, etc) and general web browsing.
Screenshot - 01_01_2022 , 19_19_20.jpg

Screenshot - 01_01_2022 , 19_23_14.png


I've just switched on FlexQoS to see what happens and set it to 415/65.

Screenshot - 01_01_2022 , 19_35_27.png
 
Yes, it may help. I use Adaptive QoS/FlexQoS on my 940/30 connection, with QoS speed configured to 920/27.
 
I use it on 500/30 virgin. I think it's amazing. Almost never get a lag spike anywhere.

fq_codel on
wan packet overhead 18 Atm unticked

In this priotity order:

Class
Net Control Packets
Gaming
Work-From-Home
Web Surfing
Others (Default)
Video and Audio Streaming
File Transferring
Learn-From-Home

With Bandidth set to:
 
One tip regards your son's Apple devices, another good way to max out the connection is by doing speed tests. Maybe just performing a couple of speed tests at night when the network is quiet could reduce a couple of the slowdowns!
 
I use it on 500/30 virgin. I think it's amazing. Almost never get a lag spike anywhere.

fq_codel on
wan packet overhead 18 Atm unticked

In this priotity order:

Class
Net Control Packets
Gaming
Work-From-Home
Web Surfing
Others (Default)
Video and Audio Streaming
File Transferring
Learn-From-Home

With Bandidth set to:
I've just set the atm to 18 (not sure what that does but I'll check tomorrow). Here's the effect of QoS since my last post earlier this evening with atm at 27. I have work from home set to top priority (for the VoIP handsets).
Screenshot - 01_01_2022 , 22_07_13.png
 
These are the overnight speed tests since switching on FlexQoS:-
 

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Work from Home includes a lot more than just VOIP. Someone got clever and made it include the stuff that you do while working from home - I have observed TeamViewer, Zoom, Gmail, POP/IMAP/SMTP, Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. all in the category. IMAP is an issue. I had someone add a bunch of email accounts to Outlook recently, then start it up, While downloading the 4 accounts it was pretty much maxing out the connection. I did not realize that email could be downloaded that fast. Now I have moved those email ports further down so that they don't choke everything. On your 400mbit, you're probably not at risk of that, but I did want to alert you in case you notice anything weird.

Keeping your upstream usage in check will definitely make a world of difference to connection responsiveness.
 
I've just set the atm to 18 (not sure what that does but I'll check tomorrow)
Makes two of us, but that's the recommended for cable. Maybe the author @dave14305 can shed more light on your issues?

TheLyppardMan said:


I have work from home set to top priority (for the VoIP handsets).
I Understand, but not of issue for me, gaming is the only priority in this crazy house I reside. @BikeHelmet post is interesting regarding this.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone for your comments. dave14305, may I ask you to elaborate your comment, "They just help saturate the line to figure out how other traffic is impacted in terms of latency" and how I would check that on my own network?
 
Thanks everyone for your comments. dave14305, may I ask you to elaborate your comment, "They just help saturate the line to figure out how other traffic is impacted in terms of latency" and how I would check that on my own network?
Run a constant ping to any site and watch how the ping times change while running a speedtest on a different machine. Ideally there will be only minor fluctuations in the ping times.
 
Run a constant ping to any site and watch how the ping times change while running a speedtest on a different machine. Ideally there will be only minor fluctuations in the ping times.
OK thanks. I'll start MultiPing running (I bought a licence for that a few years ago, but it still works with an earlier version of the software). I'll post the results on here later.
 
OK guys, I've got some results for you.

The first screenshot shows the effect of the spdMerlin auto downloads initiated by the ASUS RT-AX88U, while monitoring from my main laptop using MultPing.

The second screenshot shows the effect of monitoring on my main laptop while uploading a video file to BT Cloud from my Synology DiskStation using my other laptop. Time 18:46

The third screenshot shows the effect on my main laptop of 1) running a speed test from/to the Ookla website at 18:52 and 2) downloading the video file I uploaded to BT Cloud to the hard drive on my other laptop at 18:54.
 

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It seems like there has been a few problems with pinging the BBC web site earlier today (some packet loss as shown by the red spikes).
 

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You should probably stop running hourly speedtests on the router. They do not get limited by Adaptive QoS in the download direction of the test, so they will tend to impact all other LAN traffic.
 
You should probably stop running hourly speedtests on the router. They do not get limited by Adaptive QoS in the download direction of the test, so they will tend to impact all other LAN traffic.
Oh, that's a surprise, because I remember seeing this in the router GUI recently:-
Screenshot - 03_01_2022 , 19_49_09.jpg
 
With Adaptive QoS, that setting will only affect the Upload direction, not the Download.

What issues do you still face after enabling QoS?
My only other query really is why QoS is applying such a big and permanent throttling of my download speed. I have it set to 415 Mbps, but it's reduced my download speeds to much lower than that, as the graph below shows:-
Speed Tests History (Last 7 Days).jpg
 
Yes, it may help. I use Adaptive QoS/FlexQoS on my 940/30 connection, with QoS speed configured to 920/27.

Is QOS needed on a connection of that speed?

I have 1Gbps down (limited to 940Mbps due to 10/100/1000 WAN/LAN) and 50Mbps upload, also on Virgin Media in the UK same as @BreakingDad
 
Is QOS needed on a connection of that speed?

I have 1Gbps down (limited to 940Mbps due to 10/100/1000 WAN/LAN) and 50Mbps upload, also on Virgin Media in the UK same as @BreakingDad

I think that comes down to opinion, or perhaps your household's use case.

In my case, 4 people living in a house, all working from home, always actively using internet on multiple devices + multitude of "smart" IoT devices, there was reason for me to use Adaptive QoS to improve our user experience.
 

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