How to avoid traffic congestion in the home network

Network Administration - In this tutorial we will show you how to configure the Wi-Fi router to optimize data transfer and performance.

Today, broadband Internet connections are used not only for email access, web browsing, but also for listening to music and videos, playing online games or even making voice calls with translation. VoIP service.

A family may have several computers connected together, as well as some Xbox 360 game consoles, iPhones or handheld devices, and maybe a music player like the Squeezebox or watching videos like Roku . Some of these devices can be wired to the router or accessible via a wireless connection.

So what happens when someone wants to listen to music but others want to watch movies and another person wants to play online games online? If you've never adjusted your router's software, you've probably experienced some performance issues. This is because wireless routers often leave the factory with the default settings disabling some of their best features.

Problems with router settings

By default, wireless routers often set the maximum speed at which it can transmit data. This is necessary when you transfer files using TCP, at this time the transfer time is as fast as possible for yourself. If the router starts to abandon multiple packets, it will regulate the link speed until it reduces the possibility of data loss - then the acceleration process is performed again.

Abandoned packages and changing the link speed are not a problem when downloading files from the Internet or moving them from one place to another in your network because the packets will be sent back automatically. . It is also not important in case of some packages not reaching the destination in the wrong order, because you do not access the file until the data transfer process is completed.

But abandoning or receiving the wrong order is a serious problem in streaming movies, listening to music or talking to someone using VoIP services like Vonage or Skype. Such applications require a link speed to neglect the data packets as little as possible; Here consistency is needed, not speed.

Sending a high definition video file from a computer to a media player in the living room (for example) usually costs about 20 to 25MB / s of network bandwidth. This is completely in response to today's 802.11n routers, these new generation routers promise theoretical bandwidth up to 300Mbit / sec. However, in practice, problems such as packet loss, out-of-order and jitter (phenomena of packets to destination at different speeds) can cause some audio and video problems, causes loss of audio synchronization with images or other issues.

The current traffic on your network also has a certain influence. You definitely won't like watching a movie that is streamming from Netflix if someone in your house is exchanging large files with BitTorrent at the same time.

However there is a solution that can deliver optimum performance for each person in your home. Unless your router is too old, today's routers have software settings that can be configured to assign packets that are associated with streaming traffic for higher priority movies, music or games than those Data file transfer package (documents, spreadsheets, digital photos, and .) is based on the assumption that these data types are not sensitive to time.

These settings are also known as "quality of service" (QoS). Enabling and adjusting QoS settings is a load balancing action: this action may allow some network-oriented applications to run better, but pay the cost of other applications' lives. However, this is still the best way to specify your network bandwidth.

There is a problem with the user here that there is no standard user interface for changing QoS settings. Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) specifications are supported by most modern routers, prioritizing network traffic according to four access categories: from the highest to the lowest priority, voice and video , best effort and background . However, to do this, the WMM must be enabled in both the client's Wi-Fi software and adapter.

In addition, applications (such as media servers in a network attached storage) must be attached to two bits in each packet to get priority. But some real-world applications that are not VoIP services are also embedded with these bits, which greatly affects the applications needed above. That's why we still need to adjust the router's QoS settings to suit you. This is how.

Instructions for adjusting router settings

Router manufacturers often release new software upgrades when they detect a problem with their router. These updates usually include preliminary patches and help improve performance, sometimes they have completely new functions compared to when the router was first released. Therefore you need to make sure your router is up to date with the latest software.

Before configuring QoS settings for your router, check the support pages on the manufacturer's website for newly released software. If there is a new software version available, you should follow the instructions to download and install this upgrade.

In this article we will take D-Link's Xtreme-N DIR-655 wireless router as an example because it is a fairly popular model, besides it continues to have software upgrades. Many DIR-655 QoS techniques are developed by a third party called Ubicom and can also be found in routers manufactured by Netgear, Cisco, Trendnet and others. If you are using a different name, the screens may be different but the optimal options will be basically the same; You might just need to pay a little attention to finding them.

To start, type the router's IP address into your browser and press Enter. The default IP of the DIR-655 router is 192.168.0.1, but before performing this configuration, we changed the address of the router to 192.168.1.1 because the initial address conflicts with the DSL modem.

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Type the router's IP address into the browser to launch the configuration interface

(If you don't know your IP address, refer to its documentation. 192.168.1.1 IP addresses are usually for Linksys, 192.168.0.1 routers for D-Link and Netgear routers, 192.168. .2.1 for Belkin and 192.168.11.1 routers for Buffalo routers If you changed its default IP address and don't remember it again, then you have to reset the router to return factory defaults. its.)

Type in your admin password to access the router's settings. If you have never set up an administrator password, your router will use the default password.

Some of these subsequent settings are not related to QoS, but proper configuration can help you ensure that wireless networks can work as quickly as possible in the environment.

First, decide the fastest protocol that all of your network devices can operate. If all of your devices support 802.11n (for example), click Setup on the menu bar, click Wireless Settings , and then click the Manual Wireless Network Setup button.

Under Wireless Network Settings, change the 802.11 Mode to "802.11n only". If your device mixes between 802.11g and 802.11n products, then select that option instead or any option that suits your device. (The DIR-655, like many other routers, can support devices that mix between b / g / n, g / n or b / g). The problem here is to configure your network so that it can operate on the highest common feature to maximize what hardware you have.

Note : If you change your router to work in 802.11n-only mode, but your device has stopped working, it may be incompatible with 802.11n, in case You need to change the router back to the original mode to support lower standards if you still want to continue using that device.

Next, set Transmission Rate to "Best (automatic)" and set Channel Width to "Auto 20/40 MHz". (Note: Your router may not have these settings, or it may use other terms to describe them. For example, Belkin routers set channel-width settings to be Bandwidth).

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Pairing channels can significantly increase the wireless performance of the router

Changing this Channel Width in this way increases the router's wireless bandwidth by pairing two of the non-overlapping 20MHz channels in the 2.4GHz band. If there are 802.11b or g wireless networks operating in close proximity, the router must automatically revert to using a channel, because the policy is called "good neighbor". (Multiplexing can seriously slow down nearby wireless routers by consuming all available wireless bandwidth).

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Belkin routers set channel-width settings to be Bandwidth

This problem does not appear with newer dual-band routers equipped with radio in both 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies, as they have 12 non-overlapping channels (all 23 channels) available on the 5GHz band. However, most older wireless entertainment devices are usually only equipped with 2.4GHz receivers.

Click the " Save Settings " button when you are done making your changes.

Now access the rest of the router's QoS settings.

WMM needs to be enabled by default. To check on the DIR-655, click Advanced in the horizontal menu, in the vertical menu and check the tick next to WMM Enable . Click Save Settings to keep the changes.

When still in the Advanced tab in the horizontal menu, click QOS Engine in the vertical menu. In the checkbox labeled WAN Traffic Shaping , check the Enable Traffic Shaping and Automatic Uplink Speed ​​settings . The router will automatically measure the maximum speed that your ISP allows you to upload data to the Internet and limit the outbound traffic so that it does not exceed that limit and create an unnecessary competition.

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Check to make sure WMM is enabled

Note that if your ISP uses a cable, Automatic Uplink Speed ​​will report the uplink uplink speed because these services will regulate their uplink speed after an initial block. If you see poor VoIP performance, disable Automatic Uplink Speed ​​and enter the speed manually.

(Typical uplink DSL speed ranges fall between 128 and 768Kbit / sec, depending on the level of service you're paying and the distance from the central office of the service provider.) The uplink speed of the average Internet cable falls to about 2Mbit / sec., While other services can offer higher speeds, about 20Mbits / sec. You can measure your download and uploadlink speeds by using the free online bandwidth meter such as Speakeasy's Speed ​​Test.

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Automatic Uplink Speed ​​measures the maximum upload speed allowed by your ISP and restricts outbound traffic

In the box labeled QOS Engine Setup, check the box next to Enable QoS Engine, Automatic Classification and Dynamic Fragmentation. If the uplink speed is slow (less than 512Kbit / sec), Enabling Dynamic Fragmentation will configure the router to split large packets into smaller packages for better performance.

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Enabling Dynamic Fragmentation can support slow uplink links by splitting large packets

With the router using Ubicom's StreamEngine, Enabling Automatic Classification allows it to automatically decide whether applications should receive network priority without deep intervention.

If you are running a VoIP application, the DIR-655 automatically assigns a high priority to SIP (Session Initiation Protocol, protocols used in IP phone signaling) and RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol). , used for real-time data transfer such as voice, audio, and video over IP networks, assigning low priority to file-sharing protocols such as BitTorrent.

These types of routers have another set of QoS features called WISH (Wireless Intelligent Stream Handling). To access this feature in DIR-655, click Advanced in the horizontal menu and WISH in the vertical menu.

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DIR-655 can optimize wireless traffic between computers running Windows Media Center

Check the tick next to Enable WISH to activate it. In the box called Priority Classifiers, check the checkbox next to HTTP, Windows Media Center (if you have computers on the network running Windows versions with this feature) and Automatic.

When the HTTP classifier is activated, the router recognizes most of the typical file formats for audio and video (MP3, AAC, MP4, Flash, etc.) and automatically assigns them at a higher priority than streaming data. Download in wireless network. In the same card, the Windows Media Center classifier will recognize media traffic from a computer to media extender, including Microsoft's Xbox 360. When the Automatic classifier is activated, the router tries to prioritize other traffic streams it does not recognize, based on their behavior.

As noted above, not all routers offer the same QoS features or use the same method to share network traffic. For example, with the Linksys WRT600N, you access the router's QoS settings by clicking the Applications and Gaming menu, then clicking the QoS submenu. Here, you can assign Internet access priority to certain applications or games, to devices according to their physical MAC addresses, or to communications protocols and port ranges, or even for Physical Ethernet ports in the switch integrate with the router.

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Linksys's WRT600N router allows you to prioritize traffic by application, protocol, MAC address and even Ethernet ports.

Regardless of which router you use, we hope that the information will provide you with the benefits from which you can improve your wireless networking experience.