Traffic Prioritisation

I was just reading about the different levels of traffic prioritisation on PlusNet. I am a gamer so it is quite interesting to read:

"Gaming and VoIP traffic is the most time-sensitive of all traffic. It is in titanium to ensure that it doesn't slow down as a result of other traffic on your network, e.g. peer-to-peer."

What I want to know is, How do they identify gaming traffic? My worry is that the Packet Inspection technology they use is only going to identify certain games, your top PC stuff like counter-strike, WoW, etc... and more obscure games, like online console titles, are not going to be identified and thus dumped into the lower priority.

I'm a programmer and I know that it would be nigh-on impossible to have packet inspection that can identify any game, it has to be a list of games they use. Hmm.

Edited by Sojurn (Sat 22-Mar-08 19:39:25)

In reply to:

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What I want to know is, How do they identify gaming traffic?

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http://www.ellacoya.com/products/e30.shtml

TT

Thanks, it does sound to me like they have a databse of applications that are matched against packets and the policies then applied. They are obviously not going to have every application signature in existence on this database.

I suppose the question is what policy do they have for unidentified traffic. So an application that uses lots of UDP packets could have a high possibility of being gaming traffic, but not definetely. Maybe I will email them about this

From the member centre help section:

Adding games to our traffic management system

If you are experiencing a problem with a specific game that isn't listed there, you can use Help Assistant to request that a game be added to our system's database. Please provide the following information in our request -

* The name of the game.
* The ports it uses.
* The IP Address of a main gaming server used by the game.

Raise a request to add a game now - go to the Help Assistant and choose the options My Broadband Connection > Broadband Gaming > Adding a game to our traffic management system.

In reply to:

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I suppose the question is what policy do they have for unidentified traffic. So an application that uses lots of UDP packets could have a high possibility of being gaming traffic, but not definetely.

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Unidentified traffic gets a decent service level. It may need a tweak if your traffic sees some lag through the Ellacoya. New gaming depends on a couple of things. If it can be identified by protocol and port then PN can put a quick workaround in place. If, in the unlikely event that the traffic port hops, then you may have to wait for the manufacturer to create a signature. I can't quite remember if the Ellacoya switches need new code or you can just configure a new signature ala Snort. They were working towards this model at one point.

TT

I have to admit, PlusNet are quite "on the ball" when it comes to adding new games. Dave Tomlinson, in his role as Traffic Management guru, is quite efficient at pushing for new game sigs to be added to the Ellacoyas and (for e.g.) getting hold of popular games pre-release where possible to help do so ahead of demand on the network.

Even so, unidentified games are occasionally inevitable. And on most BBYW products, unidentified traffic is in the "Silver" traffic queue. That means, that when the network is busy, there is a risk of traffic getting dropped which can result in increased latency too. That is partly why BBYW Pro is good for gamers. On BBYW Pro, unidentified traffic is treated with the same priority as Web Browsing in the Gold queue. PlusNet's aim is to see minimal Gold traffic drops which should result in decent service all the time.

So, with Pro, even if a game isn't classified, it should still perform well. Or at least, when the network is at its busiest, an unidentified game would perform better on Pro as it would on any of the other BBYW packages.

However, going back on my previous point... gamers do find the prioritisation that PlusNet offers for them a bonus and PlusNet know that - so there is a motivation to make sure that they are setup for the vast majority of games as soon as possible for decent performance on any of the packages.

PlusNet allow product changes monthly without penalty or charge, so you could always try a standard BBYW option and upgrade to Pro if you find it necessary. I'm on BBYW Opt 3 and my brothers are gamers on XBOX Live, Wii and PC and are never complaining.

Liam,

Might be an idea to get your ISP tag removed

Sojurn - We do generally tags 99% of gaming traffic accordingly. For the traffic that we don't the traffic will be assigned a specific "service level" on our network. This depends on the product that you have with us. If you have the "Pro" product, then this will still be at roughly the highest speed that our network will allow (Gold), otherwise, if you are on one of the other Broadband Your Way products, this will be slightly slower (silver). However, like I've said, the traffic is generally tagged accordingly, so this shouldn't be a worry.

As has been mentioned, if you do notice that your gaming traffic is running a bit slower than you would expect, you can use a piece of software called Wireshark to identify whether or not we're tagging your gaming traffic accordingly and we'll get it sorted for you.