4 ms·

Is it though, or is it just a scapegoat or a red herring, especially in the case with a wireless medium? That's been my experience with quick claims to bufferbl

Is it though, or is it just a scapegoat or a red herring, especially in the case with a wireless medium? That's been my experience with quick claims to bufferbloat, it's usually something else at play. But again ymmv.

toast0 1y ago
I mean, I did a speed test with t-mobile 5g home internet, download speed was impressive, but so was the difference in ping time during the download vs otherwise. Sure, wireless is complex, but there were definitely some way too big buffers in the path. Add in some difficulty integrating their box into my network, and it wasn't for me.
- commandersaki 1y ago
  Fair enough, I concede with your assessment, my understanding of bufferbloat (which I have to relearn everytime I look at it) is that the telltale sign is ping to any destination that traverses the uplink exhibits higher latency than usual when you're saturating your download. It's just a tricky thing to test given variability of conditions (and what might be deemed as expected operation) which is why I'm usually hesitant and sceptical, and I don't trust those speedtest websites to gauge it properly.
  - ectospheno 1y ago
    Every speed test I tried that measures latency under load shows a large difference between fq_codel on and off.
  - esseph 1y ago
    This is very much a problem ISPs have to deal with as big pipes feed small pipes.
    - commandersaki 1y ago
      What do ISPs have to actually determine these issues outside of sketchy speedtest websites and vague reports or concerns from customers? What about placing probes in the correct places (e.g. in conditions where there is no additional loss or introduced latency between the end user and uplink). Also is this an actual problem that users are really having, or is it perceived because some benchmark / speedtest gave you a score. There's a lot of issues and variables at play; this isn't a case of "it's always DNS". What tools do ISPs even have at their disposal and how accurate are they and does it uncover the actual problem users are experiencing? This is the real issue that ISPs of all size have to deal with.
      - ryao 1y ago
        You don’t need a speed test website to see this problem. Just run a ping on your own while doing a big download that saturates your connection and bufferbloat will happen unless there is some active queue management to prevent the ping packets from waiting in the queue behind the download packets. This happens anytime that there is a fast/slow transition in the internet and the slow connection cannot keep up. To prevent packet loss, the packets will be buffered, which works well for short spikes, but prolonged activity will result in a noticeable backlog and if buffers are allowed to be sufficiently big, you can get arbitrarily long delays, which are visible in ping times. The worst that I have ever seen was about 30 seconds when visiting a foreign country where bufferbloat was occurring at peering links. The bufferbloat in peering links is likely visible from western countries if you ping residential IPs in developing countries and monitor the ping times over days. Some parts of the day will have very high ping times while others will not. The high ping times will be the buffer bloat. In most western countries, the bufferbloat typically occurs at people’s home internet connections. As is the case in all cases of buffer bloat, the solution is to be willing to drop packets when the connection is saturated. If you limit the bandwidth just below what the connection can handle, you can do active queue management to solve the problem. That said, I suggest you stop posting replies. Your crusade against the idea of buffer bloat makes you look bad to anyone with enough networking knowledge to understand what bufferbloat is. I also strongly suspect I wrote an explanation that you will take zero time to understand and rather than take my advice, you will post another reply to continue your crusade. :/
- esseph 1y ago
  codel/CAKE also came from that project, no middlebox needed.
Zarathustra30 1y ago
There's always something else at play. Bufferbloat hides problems from the systems that can easily solve them. It doesn't cause problems, it makes them worse.

toast0 1y ago

I mean, I did a speed test with t-mobile 5g home internet, download speed was impressive, but so was the difference in ping time during the download vs otherwise. Sure, wireless is complex, but there were definitely some way too big buffers in the path. Add in some difficulty integrating their box into my network, and it wasn't for me.

commandersaki 1y ago
Fair enough, I concede with your assessment, my understanding of bufferbloat (which I have to relearn everytime I look at it) is that the telltale sign is ping to any destination that traverses the uplink exhibits higher latency than usual when you're saturating your download. It's just a tricky thing to test given variability of conditions (and what might be deemed as expected operation) which is why I'm usually hesitant and sceptical, and I don't trust those speedtest websites to gauge it properly.
- ectospheno 1y ago
  Every speed test I tried that measures latency under load shows a large difference between fq_codel on and off.
- esseph 1y ago
  This is very much a problem ISPs have to deal with as big pipes feed small pipes.
  - commandersaki 1y ago
    What do ISPs have to actually determine these issues outside of sketchy speedtest websites and vague reports or concerns from customers? What about placing probes in the correct places (e.g. in conditions where there is no additional loss or introduced latency between the end user and uplink). Also is this an actual problem that users are really having, or is it perceived because some benchmark / speedtest gave you a score. There's a lot of issues and variables at play; this isn't a case of "it's always DNS". What tools do ISPs even have at their disposal and how accurate are they and does it uncover the actual problem users are experiencing? This is the real issue that ISPs of all size have to deal with.
    - ryao 1y ago
      You don’t need a speed test website to see this problem. Just run a ping on your own while doing a big download that saturates your connection and bufferbloat will happen unless there is some active queue management to prevent the ping packets from waiting in the queue behind the download packets. This happens anytime that there is a fast/slow transition in the internet and the slow connection cannot keep up. To prevent packet loss, the packets will be buffered, which works well for short spikes, but prolonged activity will result in a noticeable backlog and if buffers are allowed to be sufficiently big, you can get arbitrarily long delays, which are visible in ping times. The worst that I have ever seen was about 30 seconds when visiting a foreign country where bufferbloat was occurring at peering links. The bufferbloat in peering links is likely visible from western countries if you ping residential IPs in developing countries and monitor the ping times over days. Some parts of the day will have very high ping times while others will not. The high ping times will be the buffer bloat. In most western countries, the bufferbloat typically occurs at people’s home internet connections. As is the case in all cases of buffer bloat, the solution is to be willing to drop packets when the connection is saturated. If you limit the bandwidth just below what the connection can handle, you can do active queue management to solve the problem. That said, I suggest you stop posting replies. Your crusade against the idea of buffer bloat makes you look bad to anyone with enough networking knowledge to understand what bufferbloat is. I also strongly suspect I wrote an explanation that you will take zero time to understand and rather than take my advice, you will post another reply to continue your crusade. :/
esseph 1y ago
codel/CAKE also came from that project, no middlebox needed.

Zarathustra30 1y ago

There's always something else at play. Bufferbloat hides problems from the systems that can easily solve them. It doesn't cause problems, it makes them worse.