Voxel Adding bandwidth monitoring to Voxel R7800

[ex313]

I am currently on Spectrum with a 120MB package. $20 more a month gives me 300-400 MB, I am not sure we need the bandwidth and don't want to pay for it if we don't need it. We have 25+ devices on router and am looking to see just how much bandwidth I am consuming.

What is the best way to monitor this on a Voxel equipped R7800?

Thanks

D.-

 

[TheLostSwede]

You don't need Voxel for that as such.
If you go under Advanced, Advanced Setup and Traffic Meter, you can enable the traffic meter and even set a monthly limit on how much data you can use.

I don't know how you can get away with using only 120MB a month though, or are you talking about the fact that you have a 120Mbps connection?

 

[ex313]

You don't need Voxel for that as such.
If you go under Advanced, Advanced Setup and Traffic Meter, you can enable the traffic meter and even set a monthly limit on how much data you can use.

I don't know how you can get away with using only 120MB a month though, or are you talking about the fact that you have a 120Mbps connection?

I have a 120mbps connection (unlimited quota) and want to see how much of it I am utilizing. The traffic meter doesn't give me any throughput data - so hence the need for a reporting suite that can tell me how much of the connection I am using.

 

[R. Gerrits]

If it is only about seeing the usage of your ISP connection, you could install Entware + netdata package -> then you can see the usage of that connection.

But even then I think it might be difficult to judge whether there is a bottleneck. (yeah perhaps if it is close to 100% for longer periods.)
You'd probably have to combine the data with feedback from users. (if they complain it is slow, look what the usage was at that time).

If you really want to know how much data each device is consuming, then it becomes more difficult.
Kamoj added some basic BW monitoring to his add-on. But that only gives totals for each device, so you don't know the speed at which they downloaded

 

[L&LD]

Is that 120Mbps symmetrical, up and down?

 

[TheLostSwede]

I have a 120mbps connection (unlimited quota) and want to see how much of it I am utilizing. The traffic meter doesn't give me any throughput data - so hence the need for a reporting suite that can tell me how much of the connection I am using.

Right, I was confused by your initial post, as MB and Mbps are two very different measurements.

You also seem to have a slightly unusual concept with regards how to how your connection is being utilised.
Even if you can see in real time how many Mbps you're using at a specific point in time, it's not as if that's what's being utilised at all times.
In fact, most of the time, our internet connections are idle, since unless you're proactively sending or downloading some data nothing is being used.
As such, consider what you're using your connection for. Even if you're streaming a lot of videos, 120Mbps is more than enough, as a single 4K video stream from Netflix as an example, is only using up a maximum of 25Mbps, so you could stream four 4K video streams and still have bandwidth over on your current connection. Currently no streaming service have bandwidth requirements that exceed 25Mbps per 4K video stream.

However, say you download a lot of large files, say 100GB or more a day, then you might want to consider a faster internet connection, as that would, assuming where you download the data from is fast enough, cut the download time by a third or more.

Likewise, if you upload a lot of data, the same is true.

It's nigh on impossible to get an accurate reading on how much of an internet connection is being used over a period of time, as you can only get snapshots of a given time.

 

[ex313]

Is that 120Mbps symmetrical, up and down?

120 down 10 up

 

[ex313]

Right, I was confused by your initial post, as MB and Mbps are two very different measurements.

You also seem to have a slightly unusual concept with regards how to how your connection is being utilised.
Even if you can see in real time how many Mbps you're using at a specific point in time, it's not as if that's what's being utilised at all times.
In fact, most of the time, our internet connections are idle, since unless you're proactively sending or downloading some data nothing is being used.
As such, consider what you're using your connection for. Even if you're streaming a lot of videos, 120Mbps is more than enough, as a single 4K video stream from Netflix as an example, is only using up a maximum of 25Mbps, so you could stream four 4K video streams and still have bandwidth over on your current connection. Currently no streaming service have bandwidth requirements that exceed 25Mbps per 4K video stream.

However, say you download a lot of large files, say 100GB or more a day, then you might want to consider a faster internet connection, as that would, assuming where you download the data from is fast enough, cut the download time by a third or more.

Likewise, if you upload a lot of data, the same is true.

It's nigh on impossible to get an accurate reading on how much of an internet connection is being used over a period of time, as you can only get snapshots of a given time.

My apologies for not being cleared in my original post. We are a house of seven with lots of devices. I was on this morning with Spectrum and they talked to me about an upgrade. I had not really given it much thought - but thought it was prudent to see how much of our connection was being utilized. I am not excited to spend another $20 a month to the ISP - but if it makes things a little smoother around here I will spend it. We get a few connection hangups, Netflix buffering etc - by no means excessive but we do see it from time to time. Running DDwrt or some of the other packages I could see bandwidth much easier - hence the request for the best way to add some insight into what we were running.

 

[TheLostSwede]

My apologies for not being cleared in my original post. We are a house of seven with lots of devices. I was on this morning with Spectrum and they talked to me about an upgrade. I had not really given it much thought - but thought it was prudent to see how much of our connection was being utilized. I am not excited to spend another $20 a month to the ISP - but if it makes things a little smoother around here I will spend it. We get a few connection hangups, Netflix buffering etc - by no means excessive but we do see it from time to time. Running DDwrt or some of the other packages I could see bandwidth much easier - hence the request for the best way to add some insight into what we were running.

It does sound like some more bandwidth might be what you need. It's a shame it's not something that's available "on demand" so to speak, although $20 a moth for over three times the speed sounds like a fair deal to me, considering your starting point being over 100Mbps.
OpenWRT has a real time traffic graph, but considering it's only good for three minutes, even that wouldn't be of much use for you.
Sadly the R7800 doesn't have anything like that and the closest thing would be under Basic, Attached Devices, where you can see the bandwidth each device is supposed to be using, but from what I can tell, it's not very accurate and has a long delay and lag time, but you can at least list bandwidth usage by application as well as by device.

 

[RMinNJ]

I use this networx software https://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/ on my linux laptop that probes the WAN port via UPnP. Unfortunately they no longer make it for linux. I can see my kid downloading an Xbox game can use 600Mbit/sec. A Netflix preview can burst my WAN to 60Mbit/sec. I agree this should be a basic thing a router should be able to ...its there in the statistics just not computed.
e

 

[L&LD]

Only upgrade if your $20 extra per month also gives you 3 or 4 times the upload bandwidth too (or at least, double the upload speeds). Otherwise, there isn't a point for that download speed potential.

If they can give you a symmetrical package, that is what I would be most interested in.

Clients that moved from 60/15Mbps down/up speeds to symmetrical 75/75Mbps package felt their internet experience was 10x better, for example.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It might be worth trying to run something like this as well, to see how your connection works in general.

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

Is bufferbloat causing issues with your internet connection? Run this test to find out.

www.waveform.com

 

[ex313]

It might be worth trying to run something like this as well, to see how your connection works in general.

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

Is bufferbloat causing issues with your internet connection? Run this test to find out.

www.waveform.com

I rant the test - router failed on the buffer bloat test, particularly on the upload.

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

View the full results, and test your own bufferbloat

www.waveform.com

 

[TheLostSwede]

I rant the test - router failed on the buffer bloat test, particularly on the upload.

Right, that's odd if you've got an R7800 with the latest Voxel firmware, as I get an A or a B worst case, on the bufferbloat test. Did you run the test when nothing else was using your internet connection? It would help explain some of your buffering issues though, as it means you have a lot of data that isn't getting to its destination in a timely manner. I presume you have enabled QoS?

You also have fairly high latency, but this has something to do with at least in part, on how far away you're located from your ISP's equipment, but also on how modern and well tuned equipment they have at their premise.

A faster connection wouldn't solve either of these problems in and of itself.

 

[ex313]

Right, that's odd if you've got an R7800 with the latest Voxel firmware, as I get an A or a B worst case, on the bufferbloat test. Did you run the test when nothing else was using your internet connection? It would help explain some of your buffering issues though, as it means you have a lot of data that isn't getting to its destination in a timely manner. I presume you have enabled QoS?

You also have fairly high latency, but this has something to do with at least in part, on how far away you're located from your ISP's equipment, but also on how modern and well tuned equipment they have at their premise.

A faster connection wouldn't solve either of these problems in and of itself.

I have run the test with QOS active, with the computer attached to the cable modem, from my mobile phone and the results are all the same.
- the latency is from the ISP not the router
- the router is not adding any overhead or delay
- the hardwired pc is getting the same results as a local 5g wifi connection.

The modem is older - had it for 6+ years, don't know if its time to swap it out. Not sure the Spectrum Internet customer service rep will do anything for me trying to explain latency on the upload side of the connection.

Any other thoughts ?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Could be that you have one of the bad cable modems with an Intel chip in it. They managed to mess up a whole generation of cable modem chips. It's the only thing I can think of that could affect things on your side. The rest is down to your service provider.
Full list of devices here

Intel Puma 6 Modem List Chipset Defects – ApprovedModemList.com

The Do Not Buy Intel Puma 6 modem list with an explanantion of the chipset defect. Details on the lawsuit & how to spot the defective modems.

approvedmodemlist.com

 

[ex313]

Could be that you have one of the bad cable modems with an Intel chip in it. They managed to mess up a whole generation of cable modem chips. It's the only thing I can think of that could affect things on your side. The rest is down to your service provider.
Full list of devices here

Intel Puma 6 Modem List Chipset Defects – ApprovedModemList.com

The Do Not Buy Intel Puma 6 modem list with an explanantion of the chipset defect. Details on the lawsuit & how to spot the defective modems.

approvedmodemlist.com

System:

ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 / PC 1.5 Touchstone Telephony Modem HW_REV: 1 VENDOR: ARRIS Group, Inc. BOOTR: 2.2.0.45 SW_REV: 9.1.103J6J MODEL: TM1602AP2 Firmware Name: TS0901103J6J_031517_1602.TM Firmware Build Time: Wed Mar 15 16:01:46 EDT 2017

This runs a Puma6 chipset - but some reading online shows a slight issue with latency. Its been in service here at the house for like 5 years now. Maybe time to swap it out?

 

[TheLostSwede]

System:

ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 / PC 1.5 Touchstone Telephony Modem HW_REV: 1 VENDOR: ARRIS Group, Inc. BOOTR: 2.2.0.45 SW_REV: 9.1.103J6J MODEL: TM1602AP2 Firmware Name: TS0901103J6J_031517_1602.TM Firmware Build Time: Wed Mar 15 16:01:46 EDT 2017

This runs a Puma6 chipset - but some reading online shows a slight issue with latency. Its been in service here at the house for like 5 years now. Maybe time to swap it out?

Could well be, but the issue isn't just latency, it's more than that, like random lockups when testing to load websites and similar things. Obviously I don't know if this is an issue you're having it not. My cable modem/router simply started falling over, so my ISP came and swapped it out for a more recent model and I haven't had any issues since then.

 

[RMinNJ]

Yes I would recommend the arris sb8200..but does not do voice telephone if you have that from your provider.

 

[spocko]

I presume you have enabled QoS?

I thought the general recommendation for the R7800 was to leave QoS disabled. Is that incorrect?