Reserve Bandwidth

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 9

Is there any way to "reserve" bandwidth for my phone so I can play games or download while talking on the phone without having to worry about quality? I read on a CNET.com review that it's recommended to "reserver" 128Kbps...

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 9

Oh, and I have a Linksys RTP300... the adapter that came from Vonage.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 8:11 am Post subject:

Not with the RTP300, I'm afraid. Your best bet is to look into QoS (Quality of Service), and the RTP300 has QoS, but it doesn't work very well.

http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html

You have some options:

1. Put a better router with working QoS in front of the RTP300 and relegate the RTP300 to Vonage duty (what I did with my WRTP54G).

http://vonage.nmhoy.net/wrt54gl.html

Lots of routers have QoS. I recommend the WRT54GL because, well, it worked for me and I have experience with it. But there are lots of routers out there.

2. See if you can throttle back everything else to leave a 128K "hole" in your bandwidth.

3. Grin and bear it.

Posts: 83 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:30 am Post subject:

There is another option, which is an independent 'QoS device'. I know of two, one from D-Link (DI-102) and one from Hawking (HBB2). Both use the same technology called StreamEngine from Ubicom (http://www.ubicom.com).

The device sits between your modem and your router, has hardly any 'controls', and gives the upstream Voip priority. I have not tried it with game traffic, but have found that it works quite well in making sure that things like file transfers don't interfere with Voip traffic. (I mention this because they claim to improve Voip, gaming, and video. So, if you are gaming and using Voip I don't know what will get priority. If you get one from a retailer where you can return it, you can see if it works for you.)

They are not cheap ... about $70 unless you find a sale or rebate. But they are a very simple solution.

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

For 70 bucks you can just buy a WRT54GL. Which is what I'm planning on doing.

Posts: 83 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:41 am Post subject:

Very true!

(That doesn't work for me, since I have a Dual WAN router ... unless someone knows of third-party firmware that makes a WRT54GL support 2 WAN connections. If so, I would like to know.)

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:46 am Post subject:

I think the whole StreamEngine versus full QoS router debate boils down to flexibility and convenience. Especially given that both are the same basic price.

StreamEngine sounds great, and if it lives up to its promise, it is a true plug-and-play solution as long as you already have a router. I haven't tried out one of these devices, so I can't really say how well it would work. I'd love to get my paws on one someday and run it through its paces, just to see how it works in detail and be able to recommend a "plug and play" solution for those desiring one. But I lack $70 to burn at the moment to replace a solution that already works for me. (grin)

The "do it yourself" QoS route requires some learning of QoS, some configuration, and some work. But at the end, you have a router that you can control and do far more than QoS with, and the tools to fix things if they don't work perfectly in your situation.

So, WRT54GL = more work = more flexibility and control at the end of the process.

Aren't choices great! Wink

Posts: 282 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:05 am Post subject:

I have the Hawking HBB1 (don't think there is an HBB2 as mentioned above) and it can improve your upstream Voip quality. It only manages upstream traffic, nothing downstream, but that is okay as most all broadband services have plenty of downstream bandwidth.

My config is the WRT54G and PAP2. My ISP is Time Warner RoadRunner, and I have their Premium service (8Meg down, 512K up). I use the WRT54G's QoS port priority by setting the PAP2 (port 1 in my case) to High priority and everything else to low. Even with this, when I used my slingbox from outside of my home (a streaming video device that connects to a video source and your LAN) I would have choppy outgoing Voip. I could watch the QoS of the router actually working, because the streaming rate of the slingbox would drop by the 90K or so that Vonage requires, but the voice quality was choppy. I put the Hawking into this mix - no other changes - and it completely fixed the choppy voice when streaming the slingbox outside of LAN.

There are a few routers available (D-Link, ZyXel) that have the same Streamengine QoS chip built-in, which when it's time for me to upgrade routers, I'll definitely look into.

Posts: 277 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:31 am Post subject:

norriton wrote:

(That doesn't work for me, since I have a Dual WAN router ... unless someone knows of third-party firmware that makes a WRT54GL support 2 WAN connections. If so, I would like to know.)

Uhh, well..... there's only one hardware WAN port on a WRT54GL, so if someone knows how to create another hardware port and connector with third party firmware, I'd like to know too, and hire the guy or invest in his company! <grin>

Posts: 83 · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:57 pm Post subject:

To ChrisFix's comments ... Sorry I got the Hawking model number wrong, you are correct. I tried using QoS in two routers I have and neither really fixed the choppy audio. I, like you, found that the StreamEngine fixed it. And it is good to hear that it works for you with streaming video and Voip.

To DallasFlier's comments ... I know the WRT54G only has one WAN port. I don't know enough about the hardware internal to it to know if the other (LAN) ports are such that firmware could use one as a WAN port. I just thought it might be a possibility.

To NateHoy's comments ... you are certainly correct that these are two options to solve a problem ... I wouldn't even call it a debate, just a choice.