QoS & Comcast "Powerboost"

[link00seven]

Hi all!

Just picked up the ASUS RT-N66U Router. I wanted to enable QoS on this guy, but it's wanting to know my upload and download speeds. I'm figuring that I should probably set it to my provisioned speeds (25Mbps/4Mbps) but given that "Powerboost" temporarily increases these speeds, should I set them higher? I just don't want to set it, and be losing any speed from Powerboost, as temporary as it is.

As for any other QoS tips, I don't have any specific questions at the moment. I was going to just rely on the automatic QoS for now and tweak it a bit more down the road once I do some reading.

Thank you.

 

[AnthonyArmato]

Set it for your sustained speeds.

 

[link00seven]

Okay, I'll go ahead and try it! Thanks!

 

[AnthonyArmato]

Not sure how familiar you are with things but use this tool to find your sustained speeds.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~partha/diffprobe/shaperprobe.html

 

[NeutralGold]

Using QoS pretty much makes Comcast's powerboost feature useless. Which it's not really that big of a deal since it only works on the first 10 megabytes of a download. I really wouldn't worry yourself with trying to build QoS settings with powerboost in mind.

That tool provided is pretty useful in finding your true speeds. Most online speed test are pretty useless when it comes to finding speeds for QoS, since the download/upload test are running on the extra bandwidth provided by powerboost.

Comcast use it as a selling point, it's not really that great of a feature in my opinion.

 

[AnthonyArmato]

QoS does not disable powerboost.

 

[link00seven]

I've used the tool you linked before - it is useful to make sure one is getting the speeds advertised. I've noticed that when I have QoS enabled, the download speed still functions about the same, showing the differences between Powerboost and sustained speeds. But upload speeds appear to be limited to whatever I set the QoS to be. That's why I asked this question in the first place. It just seems odd.

 

[KevTech]

Never seen a need for QoS with Comcast.

QoS can actually slow down your connection.

 

[RMerlin]

QoS should only be used when you really need it. Most of the time, you can achieve better results simply by configuring your network clients appropriately. For instance, limiting the upload speed inside your torrent client will ensure it won't interfere with your browsing activities.

QoS is usually needed if you have many users sharing the same Internet connection and you need to ensure that they don't bog one another down, especially if using time-sensitive services such as VoIP.

Otherwise, yes, QoS does have a price attached to it. Especially if you don't precisely finetune it to your specific needs. With ISPs providing dynamic speeds (like Comcast), it becomes more complicated to implement.

 

[SoCalReviews]

I am using two N66U's for two separate networks. I originally used the official Asus .178 firmwares but I now have the latest .178.15 Merlin build running great on both N66U routers. I have 12/1 on my DSL connection. On my cable internet I have 100/5. I used to have extensive QoS and port triggering/forwarding rules on my WNDR3700v2 routers in order to keep the video streaming, PS3 gaming smooth and the VoIP working as it should while all the other traffic from smart phones, iPads, notebook PCs were accessing the network. Using all those specific customized rules for each device kept things working much better with those settings when the 3700v2 router was put under heavy load.

After I purchased and installed my RT-N66U and with the exception of the basic setup parameters I kept the settings on default including having QoS disabled. With default settings I haven't had a problem with streaming video stuttering, PS3 lag and up to this point no VoIP sound quality problems. Just to test it I tried enabling QoS and set the bandwidth parameters for my cable connection and could not detect any difference in quality. With QoS enabled or disabled everything works as it should even under higher bandwidth loads. Therefore I keep QoS disabled for both my N66U routers.

I have to conclude that the N66U with it's 256MB DDR2 RAM simply handles the traffic bandwidth so well on both the DSL and cable internet connections that additional QoS settings are not really necessary for most applications. From the additional information I read about the Broadcom hardware used in the N66U and the latest generation "smart chips" are designed to automatically analyze packets and prioritize or condition commonly recognized traffic such as VoIP. I am not sure if that is how it is working in the N66U hardware or if that is the actual reason for the great performance for bandwidth and latency sensitive applications with QoS disabled but all I know is that this router just seems to work well with the default settings.

 

[NeutralGold]

QoS does not disable powerboost.

I never said it disabled it completely. But it does in the end still disable any powerboosting you may get for things configured in QoS that doesn't allow 100% bandwidth usage. Which for the most part if you want QoS to function properly, include nearly all traffic.

 

[tipstir]

Hi all!

Just picked up the ASUS RT-N66U Router. I wanted to enable QoS on this guy, but it's wanting to know my upload and download speeds. I'm figuring that I should probably set it to my provisioned speeds (25Mbps/4Mbps) but given that "Powerboost" temporarily increases these speeds, should I set them higher? I just don't want to set it, and be losing any speed from Powerboost, as temporary as it is.

As for any other QoS tips, I don't have any specific questions at the moment. I was going to just rely on the automatic QoS for now and tweak it a bit more down the road once I do some reading.

Thank you.

Comcast 20mb/s / 5mb/s the powerboost gives you 25mb/s and 5mbps. This is how it was with me prior. Make sure QoS on the PC your using is set to 0 (zero) instead of 20. If you don't change this you won't get the right reading. When you test. QoS has to be edited.

 

[AnthonyArmato]

I never said it disabled it completely. But it does in the end still disable any powerboosting you may get for things configured in QoS that doesn't allow 100% bandwidth usage. Which for the most part if you want QoS to function properly, include nearly all traffic.

Powerboost works just fine and is available for all my devices when higher priority devices aren't using all the bandwidth. I tested this again before posting to make sure.


From the User-defined QoS rules dropdown list, you can prioritize the network applications or devices into five levels. Based on priority level, QoS uses the following methods in sending data packets:

Change the order of upstream network packets, which refer to the order in which packets are sent to the Internet.
Low-priority packets are disregarded to ensure the transmission of high-priority packets. The higher priority upstream packet will cause the higher priority downstream packet.
**** If there are no packets being sent from high-priority applications, the full transmission rate of the Internet connection is available for low-priority packets.

 

[NeutralGold]

Powerboost works just fine and is available for all my devices when higher priority devices aren't using all the bandwidth. I tested this again before posting to make sure.


From the User-defined QoS rules dropdown list, you can prioritize the network applications or devices into five levels. Based on priority level, QoS uses the following methods in sending data packets:

Change the order of upstream network packets, which refer to the order in which packets are sent to the Internet.
Low-priority packets are disregarded to ensure the transmission of high-priority packets. The higher priority upstream packet will cause the higher priority downstream packet.
**** If there are no packets being sent from high-priority applications, the full transmission rate of the Internet connection is available for low-priority packets.

Well I haven't really paid too much attention to it. I guess since I have several people using my connection, I'm not seeing to much of the powerboost myself. I know using tomato that powerboost is pretty much disabled for anything that doesn't get 100% bandwidth. I do see more powerboost over asus's firmware, so I guess it functions a bit different from tomato's rule sets.

Either way, thanks for taking the time to correct and explain it better. I was just going by what I was seeing during my day to day activities. I actually haven't done much experimenting with my QoS since I've been back on Asus's firmware. Powerboost is really nice for my online storage sync with small files, but other than that I really hate that feature .. Mostly because it was really hard to set up tomato's QoS back when I was using it.