Suggestions for upstream QOS for Plusnet

An issue with PlusNet broadband is that PlusNet only QOS within the downstream only. This leaves the upstream unmanaged, PlusNet have said this is due to a bottleneck within their QOS system.
This is an issue for gamers and those who use VoIP as if someone uploads on a PlusNet connection it causes the game to lag or for VOIP it causes voice call break up.

So I want to give PlusNet a suggestion on how they could improve this.
Suggestion

To use the Technicolor TG582n for the upstream QOS.
It is known that the Technicolor TG582n can do upstream QOS as shown by TG582N - Amazing upload QOS! (CLI configuration) thread. http://community.plus.net/forum/?topic=116556.msg100...
What I feel PlusNet should do is they could make a firmware update pre-installing upload QOS rules within the Technicolor TG582n (plus any router going forward. The Technicolor TG589vn v3 ADSL/VDSL Router?) thus fixing the problem with the upload QOS.

Thank you for reading this and await any feedback from PlusNet staff and any of the PlusNet customers on this suggestion.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Oct-13 15:03:26)

PlusNet have said this is due to a bottleneck within their QOS system.

Not quite, by the time you've reached our network you've gone through the bottleneck already, which is your broadband line. That's always the smallest capacity part between you and the edge of our network.

You can do this via the router as you've already suggested, and I'll make sure our products team are aware of that thread for any future changes to the router/firmware.

Sorry if I have a made a mistake Chris but what about a
firmware like DD-WRT that can do Downstream QOS after it gone through the line?

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Oct-13 13:09:19)

I've been wondering about the QOS settings on my Fritz!Box. It needs to know US and DS speeds, but I'm still using the OR modem.
As PlusNet are managing DS then I've entered 99999 kbit/sec for this. (Connection speed in Member Centre is 78Mb/s)

How do I find out the correct US rate for my connection?

Simon.

Do a few speedtests on this site.
Generally the recommendation is to set the upstream QOS to around 90% of your speedtest value although you could experiment and maybe push it to a higher percentage.

Run the BT Wholesale speed tester, ignoring the list of things to do/not do, and click the Further Diagnostics button at the bottom of the results page.

The downstream IP Profile is probably 78 as well, but whatever it is, divide it by 0.9679. The result within a whisker is your DS connection speed. I guess the true value is 79997-79999kbps.

Upstream IP Profile will be 20Mbps and useless, as it is set to that is for 80/20 connections.

In reply to a post by ffx2boy:

Sorry if I have a made a mistake Chris but what about a
firmware like DD-WRT that can do Downstream QOS after it gone through the line?

That generally works by dropping packets so the sending ends backs off a bit.

Oh I see, I wonder why PlusNet's QOS system does not do anything like that for the upload side of the connection? Could someone from PlusNet explain why it doesn't?


Also I noticed PlusNet's traffic management pages are a bit out of date because PlusNet made changes in September (due to peak time humps on TBB graphs) that moved some traffic from gold to silver for example FTP traffic was moved to silver but it still lists FTP traffic in gold? See here:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/tr...

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 14:19:32)

In reply to a post by ffx2boy:

Oh I see, I wonder why PlusNet's QOS system does not do anything like that for the upload side of the connection?

Because the upload is controlled by the router your end. Can't you just add rules to your router?

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 14:19:15)

Adding rules to a router does not help the average person with their upload QOS problems.(remember this is a suggestion thread for everyone) not just for 1 person.
I have talked to many people who say they lag every time someone uploads on their connection. so it's clearly a problem that needs fixing.
Also I have seen traffic management systems that can control the upload from the ISP side of the connection meaning it doesn't have to be from the router.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:02:05)

In reply to a post by ffx2boy:

Adding rules to a router does not help the average person with their upload QOS problems.

Odd. It helped me.

That's because you know how to do it, The average person does not know how to do it.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:03:30)

Not quite, my router has a button to select different QOS settings. I know how to press the button.
If you find out how to do it, can't you just publish your settings in this thread? That seems to be how forums are meant to work.

Remember most routers the average person has does not have features like that. Take for example the Technicolor TG582n it takes more than a button to make it's QOS work for gaming or VoIP.
Which is why I suggested to Chris Parr earlier in thread to make these rules pre-installed as it makes it easy for the average person to benefit from.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 22:40:44)

Perhaps the only rule you need is to prioritise outgoing ACKs.

what make you say that?

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:16:31)

Given that Plusnet already run QOS on the downstream, that is one thing that will make a difference assuming you're saturating your upstream and is applicable to everyone.

Well maybe that might work, but in the end it would be PlusNet's upload QOS rules that would be used and I get a feeling that PlusNet would rather do it by installing game/VoIP rules or by backlisting traffic that would effect gaming/VoIP like file uploads and bit torrent traffic.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:09:05)

That's how they prioritise the downloads. Why would they do that for uploads?

You should do it to the uploads because it stops file upload traffic from taking to much bandwidth away from the game/VOIP in the upstream causing it to lag or cause a Voice call break up due to lack of bandwidth for it.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:22:47)

If it's not done on the router then it will have to be done at a network level but by the time the packets in the network it's already used the upstream bandwidth, You could drop it in the network and hope the sending application backs off (Which is basically what happens with downstream QOS on a lot of routers) but if it doesn't then all you're actually doing is causing more usage due to the retranmissions.

I think he's suggesting the QOS rules are applied to the router by Plusnet using TR069.

I guessed as much but does it work normally? from what I can tell it does as many routers chose this way of doing it ?

batboy is correct with TR069 or could be by firmware update.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:11:54)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I think he's suggesting the QOS rules are applied to the router by Plusnet using TR069.

It would depend if the TR-69 Data model contains the parameters for QOS or not, either as part of the standard IGD tree or as a vendor specific extension.

I should have said remote admin really.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I should have said remote admin really.

TR-69 would be the best way to change settings on lots of devices providing the QOS is controllable via it, The problem then becomes finding the right balance of QOS settings and it also depends on how good the QOS is on the router.

Then there's the problem of knowing the customers upstream sync speed so that the system can apply the correct settings.

It's probably doable just a bit of a minefield.

The PlusNet router does not need the customer to enter their upload speed to do QOS as the router already QOS's ICMP traffic out of the box and does it well with good latency.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Nov-13 21:13:18)

http://community.plus.net/forum/?topic=116556.msg100...
In that thread above (The one I posted earlier) the method was to blacklist traffic that could harm games like HTTP file uploads or NNTP traffic. This lead to a few problems like unable to detect some traffic such as bit torrent upstream from harming game/VOIP traffic. So using telnet I had a go to QOS gaming traffic itself and came up with this rule list (You can copy and paste these in to the router to save time typing them in manually)

expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27000
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27001
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27002
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27003
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27004
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27005
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27006
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27007
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27008
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27009
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27010
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27011
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27012
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27013
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27014
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 27015
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 88
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 3074
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 3075
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 1863
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 3478
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 3479
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 3480
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 3658
expr add name=P2P type serv proto udp dstport 10070
label rule add chain=qos_user_labels index=1 name=P2P serv=P2P label=Management
saveall

These rules detect most Peer to peer games (75%) and some dedicated server (50%) games on PC while also detecting most games on PlayStation and Xbox Consoles (around 90% for both).So these QOS rules should work well with consoles.
Using these rules no matter what traffic is being uploaded at the same time as playing the game it should not cause lag problems (fixing the problem they had in that thread with bit torrent upstream) These QOS rules could also be used with the QOS rules within that thread to reduce lag in any of the games that are not supported with my rules.

Edit: maybe PlusNet could use QOS rules like these?
Edit 2: removed port 53 as not gaming rule

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Nov-13 12:56:29)

I wouldn't include UDP port 53 in your rule set - that's the port for DNS. You want name lookups, which use very little bandwidth, to be handled quickly, not prioritized downwards with P2P traffic.

oh i meant P2P meaning P2P gaming not P2P bit torrent but i will remove DNS if its port 53

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Nov-13 11:19:23)

Post deleted by ffx2boy

Edited by deleted (Tue 31-Dec-13 14:49:42)

I have done few tests showing the performance difference between queue 4 (management) and queue 5 on the TG852n. It showed that using queue 5 rather than 4 gives a more smoother QOS experience. Depending on the traffic it could give about half the ping time e.g. I would sometimes see 100 ms on queue 4 but only 50 ms on queue 5 when the upstream was being maxing out. (Bit torrent traffic was most noticeable for doing this)
You should be able to change my QOS rules Which run in queue 4 to queue 5 if you wish to improve the upstream QOS for your gaming traffic. You should be able to do this by the use of the following:

label add name=Game

label modify name=Game classification=overwrite defclass=14 ackclass=14
bidirectional=disabled inheritance=disabled

label rule modify chain=qos_user_labels index=1 label=Game

saveall

Edited by deleted (Sun 09-Feb-14 21:03:50)