The perils of QoS hiding internet upgrades

[pdc]

Hey gang, I have a bit of a funny story, at my expense

So back when cake was rolled out on Merlin (a year and a half ago?) I did all the speed tests and whatnot, and configured cake on my 80/10 cable internet service. It's been working really well, but I started thinking some more bandwidth would be good and so my wife did some investigation with the cable company. Well, long story short, it turns out at some time in the fall they upgraded us to 800(!!)/10 service and didn't tell us! And, well, I've been artificially throttling us ever since. I must say it was a shock to turn off cake and see ~650 Mbps! My cable modem is 24x8 so that might be limiting a bit, not to mention 80:1 asymmetric service, but those are topics for a different thread.

Fortunately my wife thought it was funny, and I am now putting up with many jokes from "IT Crowd" and other tech-related humor. And I have to say I am laughing at myself as well. I tried defending myself with the stability over speed arguments, but my wife is not convinced, and to be honest, QoS is a tough topic to explain under the best of circumstances.

On a more practical note, this does highlight a challenge with QoS in that it hides increases to the underlying bandwidth. It is certainly unusual to have a 10x speed boost, but it is not unheard of for more routine speed increases over time.

Is this where something like spdMerlin could be used?

 

[ColinTaylor]

On a more practical note, this does highlight a challenge with QoS in that it hides increases to the underlying bandwidth. It is certainly unusual to have a 10x speed boost, but it is not unheard of for more routine speed increases over time.

Is this where something like spdMerlin could be used?

Maybe that's what the QoS GUI option "Bandwidth Setting = Automatic Setting" is for.

 

[BreakingDad]

How funny, it's up there with my wife stripping down our irrigation water butt system on the greenhouse completely, trying to find a leak, and then realising one of the taps had been left open.

 

[L&LD]

ISPs, wireless protocols, device drivers, OS', and everything else connected on the 'net are in a constant state of flux.

This is my argument when I propose a full network setup again to certain customers. They are almost always as shocked as you were with how their network behaves afterward.

I understand (via logic) the thinking of some people that certain things shouldn't affect the outcome of a network experience (and therefore, why a full reset isn't/shouldn't be needed), but real-world results almost always prove otherwise.

Both stories are good! Thanks for sharing.