topic Poor broadband in Archive

Bad bufferbloat

AlexBetty — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:50:51 GMT

Hello there,

Hope all is well. Unfortunately my area doesn't have fibre broadband and the best I can receive is classed as 20mb download and 1mb upload. However my bufferbloat is very bad and to a point where any sort of traffic will serious cause instability in streaming or online gaming. I have provided a photo of my waveform bufferbloat test grade F. Is there anything that can be done to improve this I.e. look into an aftermarket router however I am aware there might be some compatibility issues with sky.

Thank you.

Poor broadband

AlexBetty — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:04:12 GMT

Hello there,

Thank you.

Re: Poor broadband

GD1 — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:05:08 GMT

@AlexBetty Please can you post your router stats https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/How-to-find-your-Sky-Broadband-router-stats/td-p/2855717

Re: Poor broadband

Highlinder — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:05:46 GMT

@AlexBettyNo picture was uploaded.

Re: Poor broadband

AlexBetty — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:10:39 GMT

@Highlinder @GD1 My apologies sorry. Thank you for the fast reply. I have uploaded it here.

Re: Bad bufferbloat

GD1 — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 19:17:31 GMT

You already raised this on the following thread https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/Poor-broadband/td-p/3857531

I've asked for this thread to be merged with your original thread.

Re: Poor broadband

JPR007 — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 19:24:07 GMT

@AlexBetty Which devices do you have connected via ethernet? That (to me) is an extremely high number of packet collisions so something is not right on your network, and that is a red flag....

Re: Poor broadband

AlexBetty — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 21:38:44 GMT

Thank you for the reply. I just have a wifi whole home extender connected to the router via Ethernet. I have same results connecting tbe pc to router. Do you have any recommendations for me?

Re: Poor broadband

AlexBetty — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 21:52:08 GMT

@JPR007 Thank you for the reply. I just have a wifi whole home extender connected to the router via Ethernet. I have same results connecting tbe pc to router. Do you have any recommendations for me?

Re: Poor broadband

jamesn123 — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 12:34:08 GMT

@AlexBetty

Your situation can only be improved in two ways.

1. Upgrade to fibre

2. Use a router with configurable QoS

Re: Poor broadband

AlexBetty — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 12:43:54 GMT

@jamesn123 Thank you for the reply. Could you please suggest me some routers that are compatible with sky adsl supporting QoS. Thank you

Re: Bad bufferbloat

TimmyBGood — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 13:33:28 GMT

@AlexBetty wrote:

Unfortunately my area doesn't have fibre broadband and the best I can receive is classed as 20mb download and 1mb upload. However my bufferbloat is very bad and to a point where any sort of traffic will serious cause instability in streaming or online gaming.

Unfortunately ' streaming or online gaming ' is going to suck over ADSL no matter what hardware you have bolted onto the end of it: even with QoS you've only got a fraction over one megabit per second of outbound bandwidth to share.

Re: Poor broadband

jamesn123 — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 13:40:57 GMT

@AlexBetty

Any router that supports PPoE really. Depends whether you want to future proof it against FTTC or FTTP

Re: Poor broadband

TimmyBGood — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 13:51:47 GMT

@jamesn123 wrote:

@AlexBetty

Any router that supports PPoE really.

PPPoA with MER for Sky ADSL, though, with an integral VDSL modem. Getting scarcer as ADSL becomes less of a thing.

Re: Poor broadband

AlexBetty — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 17:00:46 GMT

@TimmyBGood @jamesn123 Sorry I'm not really knowledgeable on this area. Do you happen to know of any routers that are compatible in my situation? I am really eager to upgrade. Thank you

Re: Bad bufferbloat

jamesn123 — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 17:11:14 GMT

@AlexBetty

Its not as simple as just telling you a router because it depends on many things such as budget, whether you want to future proof it for a fibre upgrade or just buy a router with a built in modem, whether you game or not, whether you are interested in WiFi 6 (again future proofing) etc

Re: Bad bufferbloat

AlexBetty — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 17:25:26 GMT

@jamesn123 I see. I don't think my area will have fibre for a while and besides when I do get fibre I won't mind upgrading once again, with budget I once again I don't mind as I just want to fix this bufferbloat issue as much as possible. And yes I am mostly doing this to improve my online gaming experience and that's the main reason I want to upgrade. Thank you

Re: Bad bufferbloat

jamesn123 — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 17:32:47 GMT

@AlexBetty

Worth noting even with a high spec router your bufferbloat results likely wont be that good because your on ADSL and its the worst for that kind of thing.

Re: Bad bufferbloat

AlexBetty — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 18:49:16 GMT

@jamesn123 I completely agree with you. I am just trying to find out what the best thing I can do to improve my network. I would really appreciate if you could recommend some routers with any budget for my situation as I am interested in trying to sort something out very soon. Thank you

Re: Bad bufferbloat

richbhanover — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 23:18:40 GMT

I'm a long-time user of ADSL. I had 7mbps/768kbps service. I learned that bufferbloat can definitely be fixed by using the proper router.

I have recommended to dozens of people in my small town (1700 population) to buy IQrouters to address the problem. But more and more equipment is becoming aware of the "lack of responsiveness" and bad latency.

See What Can I Do About Bufferbloat? for more details.