EVDOforums.com

Fox McCloud · EVDO Junkie Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 599

Ok, does the WRT54G3G-ST have built in QoS? I know the WRT54G3G did, but I'm not sure about this unit...

I ask because I will most likely be playing a few RTS games (real-time strategy games...despite the name, they're pretty forgiving when it comes to latency), and another user may be surfing the net. Obviously, with both running at the same time, it'll be a "first come, first served" basis. However, if the router has QoS (or it there's a way to get QoS with it) then the game will take priority over surfing.

Also, if/when EVDO Revision A is deployed, and I see 50-80 ms latency, consistently, I may consider VoIP.

Oldbull · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 24

Yes it does, its under the Gaming and Application section. Only works with the wired connections though...as best as I can understand it anyway.

Fox McCloud · EVDO Junkie Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 599

Oldbull · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 24

As I understand it, QoS does not work with the wireless connections at all. I'm not 100% on this though so hopefully someone with more experience while chime in to confirm or correct. I spent several hours going through info on the Linksys site and forums when I was researching this particular feature.....I have been wrong before, just ask the wife : )

hustl3 · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:31 pm Post subject: QoS settings...

Fox McCloud · EVDO Junkie Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 599

what, exactly is WMM Support?

hustl3 · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 3:44 pm Post subject: Thesecome from the router menus

Two types of Quality of Service features are available, Wired QoS which controls devices plugged in to the router with a Ethernet cable, and Wireless QoS, which control devices that are wirelessly connected to the router.

Wired QoS

Device Priority : You may specify priority for all traffic from a device on your network by giving the device a Device Name, specifying priority and entering its MAC address.

Ethernet Port Priority : You may control your data rate according to which physical LAN port your device is plugged into. You may assign High or Low priority to data traffic from devices connected on LAN ports 1 through 4.

Application Priority : You may control your data rate with respect to the application that is consuming bandwidth. Check Optimize Gaming Applications to automatically allow common game application ports to have a higher priority. You may customize up to eight applications by entering the port number they use.

Wireless QoS

Wireless QoS is also referred to as Wi-Fi MultiMediaTM (WMM) by the Wi-Fi AllianceTM. Select Enable to utilize WMM if you are using other wireless devices that are also WMM certified.

No Acknowledgement : Enable this option if you would like to disable acknowledgement. If this option is enabled, the router will not re-send data if an error occurs.

Fox McCloud · EVDO Junkie Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 599

so, it sounds as though to get thorough QoS, it is best to do with wired...bummer, as that won't work out well for me.

Anyway, lets say that EVDO Revision A is in my area, and I consistently get a latency of 50-80 ms and have bandwidth of 2 meg down, and 768k up--if I was playing a game, and someone else was surfing, do you think that the surfing would cut into my gameplay and cause it to lag/jitter/etc?

Scott · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 12:37 am Post subject:

While the Linksys WRT54G3G-ST does have local QoS for both LAN and WLAN clients. Unless the WLAN client(s) use WMM they will not have the capability to prioritize packets over the Wi-Fi jump.

Note also that the 3G-ST's packaging puts the router in the 'Wireless G' class of routers, which are suggested to be different than the VoIP routers, which I take to be a hint to mean that the QoS flag doesn't continue out either the WAN Ethernet port (aka 'Internet' port on the 3G-ST) or the WWAN/EVDO card connection, prioritizing certain packets over others.

While it would appear that the internal QoS config may give higher priority to data leaving the WAN/WWAN ahead of other stuff, prioritizing incoming packets to those devices given higher priority probably doesn't happen. That doesn't mean the QoS setting won't help you with game boxes, etc., experiment yourself to see.

By contrast, VoIP routers do send QoS prioritization flags out the WAN and know what to do with incoming packets with flags.

Now.. about the EVDO jump and whether it deals with QoS or not...

EVDO Rev A is said to support QoS, and thus, VoIP. But... we have no info whether Sprint or Verizon have implemented this capability for their EVDO Rev A wireless clients/towers, so like Wi-Fi clients lacking WMM support, QoS may not happen over the wireless jump.

So my take is that unless that wireless jump can account for prioritization (from either end, mind you) than its a QoS dead zone.

That doesn't mean that QoS flags are stripped off, perhaps they are, perhaps not (let the packet analyzing begin!) but for now, any packets leaving with a QoS "headstart" may just hit the airspace where all things are even. Not to discount first-in/first-out, but the tower will "hear what it hears" over the airspace and receive what it receives NOT giving priority to anything.

What this sounds like to me is that QoS has to happen down on layers 1 and 2 for the "DO" jump.