QoS - some questions

[icstm]

Hi there,

I recently bought (yes probably overpaid given many on VDSL have problems with this box) a secondhand DSL AC68U as an all-in-one modem-router to replace my sky provided ASDL box (I have not FTTC in my area).
My line has always been a good line, when with Be* Unlimited I was almost in the 24Mbit club. When I moved to Sky, the DLM set my line a little slow on download, but maxed the upload, so back when they still had some of their Bulgarian support staff (from their acquisitions) I asked for them to assign a speed profile (whereas Be used to have SnR profiles), which upped the download to 20Mbit (so slower than my natural sync speed with Be) but better than the 18Mbit.

With the Asus, I am still on that profile, however the SnR is poorer at just over 3dB where on the Sky box it would be around 4-6dB.
The key issues I was looking to address were:

• Wifi Range (get signal further away from router and sync at higher speeds further away)
• Wifi reliability (Sky box needed rebooting as some Wifi devices became less responsive, eg Roku playing local media or Logitech Harmony remote working with Roku devices)

I would say the Asus has addressed the 2nd, in so far as I can now play high bitrate local media with no buffering

However the box has brought lots of other features. Of particular interest are QoS and the traffic analyser.

QoS
I am using the bandwidth Monitor (and have ordered the devices) and the Adaptive QoS.

• Does this only apply to internet traffic, or does it also implicitly apply to local traffic as well? Some of my most important use-cases is to prioritise my local media streaming
• I would like to prioritise Video Calling internet traffic. How does it classify "Stun" traffic? We do a lot of working from home and MS Teams and Cisco WebEx video calling get classified as "Stun" traffic, though there are also entries for the typical video calling applications eg Teams separately, but much lower usage than the Stun line. (ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/microsoft-teams-online-call-flows)

Many thanks!

 

[L&LD]

Look for the @GNUton RMerlin fork for your DSL-AC68U with access to many of RMerlin's features, improvements, and optimizations.

Release - [DSL-AC68U] AsusWrt Merlin builds for DSL routers | SmallNetBuilder Forums (snbforums.com)

Some of the 'goodies' that RMerlin routers offer (link below).

Features | Asuswrt-Merlin (asuswrt-merlin.net)

And the scripts available via the built-in amtm (link below).

amtm - the Asuswrt-Merlin Terminal Menu - Diversion

The one that should interest you is FlexQoS (see the link above).

 

[ColinTaylor]

QoS doesn't effect local LAN to LAN traffic. (I can't answer your other questions)

 

[icstm]

Look for the @GNUton RMerlin fork for your DSL-AC68U with access to many of RMerlin's features, improvements, and optimizations.

Yes, I have seen an Alpha build already. I signed up to this site to thank him!

before I switch to that (I'd rather wait for a slightly more tested build for my main modem), I was hoping that I get answers.

Equally importantly, assuming that the same classifications apply to Merlin and Asus, does anyone know how STUN is classified?
In either Merlin or Asus, I would rather not define QoS rules for all protocols, ports and LAN IPs and would rather use the more pre-defined quick solutions.

QoS doesn't effect local LAN to LAN traffic. (I can't answer your other questions)

Thanks

 

[L&LD]

I didn't link you to an Alpha build.

You need to dive in and get your hands a little dirty before you can appreciate what the rewards will be.

 

[icstm]

my mistake. I'll roll up my sleaves.

 

[Kalashnikov]

QoS

• I would like to prioritise Video Calling internet traffic. How does it classify "Stun" traffic? We do a lot of working from home and MS Teams and Cisco WebEx video calling get classified as "Stun" traffic, though there are also entries for the typical video calling applications eg Teams separately, but much lower usage than the Stun line. (ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/microsoft-teams-online-call-flows)

Hi, in my experience with Asus AC-86U, most of the MS Teams traffic is "STUN". The QoS adaptive engine classifies it as "Net Control Packets" (the highest priority), and it shows up with the red label in the "Tracked connections" under the QoS Classification tab.

Odly, since firmware 386.1 the STUN traffic statistics (in the pie charts) appears to be counting to the second highest priority class (doesn't matter which one you choose) instead of the "Net Control Packets" class.
I don't know if this is a bug with the firmware or in the trend micro signature, or if it's by design. But clearly, at least for STUN traffic there's a classification inconsistency between the tracked connections and the statistics in the pie charts section.