The openwrt docs reference this post: forum.openwrt.org/t/so-you-have-500mbps-1gbps-fiber-and-need-a-router-read-this-first/90305
They talk about a router from 2009 not being able to handle CPU-only SQM on a gigabit internet connection.
If you have a gigabit internet connection you don’t need SQM.
Yeah, but then you don’t have to draw it before first use.
The algorithm is super easy:
A stream is defined as something that shares the same Source IP, Target IP, Source port, Target port and protocol, so e.g. “TCP 192.168.0.2:45231 -> 80.0.0.1:443”. This 5-tuple is guaranteed to be unique at a certain time.
The router counts how many packets each stream had in the last second.
If the bandwith is at its limit and two streams want to send a packet, prioritize the one that had fewer packets in the last second.
This covers all of your bases:
The cool thing is, this algorithm needs extremely little space in RAM and is extremely easy on the CPU too. To store a stream’s data you need 13 bytes for the metadata plus 3 bytes for the package counter, netting 16 bytes per stream. That’s 64 concurrent streams per Kilobyte of used RAM. A megabyte fits 64k streams. You can implement that algorithm on an original Gameboy and it wouldn’t sweat.
Also, remember that this algorithm only looks at the last second or so of data, so it can drop all idle sessions within just one second. 64k concurrent streams within one second is enough for professional-grade office routers.
Source: I actually spent the first 7 years of my carreer at a company that makes routers and switches and developed the software for them. 128MB RAM was what our mid-range models had, and every single model we had had traffic priorisation.
In fact, our network-provider-grade routers and switches had dedicated network metadata RAM, and they were usually limited to 4-16MB.
The only reason your router even has 128MB RAM or more is so that it can display a fancy configuration web page with images.
Actually, no. That’s a very simple basic functionality. A router needs to identify the streams (identified by the 5-tuple of source and destination IP and port and the protocol) to work at all. It also needs to prioritise traffic to work at all.
Combining both features is trivial even on 128mb RAM, and it’s implemented in most routers.
I wish all these European Linux projects would pool resources and create one good solution instead of each little country or even city DIYing their own solution.
Yeah, that’s what I really don’t get.
Why would any serious company think it’s a great idea to outsource all your intelligence work to a handfull of US companies, making yourself wholely dependant on their goodwill and the goodwill of the US government?
I would so love if this causes an usage spike for Firefox, so that all websites and webapps start testing for Firefox compatibility again…
That’s where traffic priorisation comes in. If your router is setup in a somewhat reasonable way it gives priority to smaller data streams to avoid just that.
Locomotives are for normies. A true autist knows the cars as well, and who made the handrails.
OTOH, is using electronically created music not art too? If you write your music and put it into FL Studio or something similar to “play” the music for you, is it not art?
I think the electric piano is a false equivalent here. Electronically created music is not the same as AI.
You need enough people to be able to overcome the military and law enforcement. So that differs depending on the country.
The USA has 2.81 million service members, so nearly 1% of the population. I’d say that one soldier with training and incredible amounts of war machinery could easily take out 10 untrained average americans even if they have guns, so 10% is likely not enough. Might be enough in a country with no money and hardly any military, but just think about it. How many angry people does it take to take out a tank or a fighter jet?
What is not true?
Do the math yourself, it’s only grade school level:
A download takes 100 minutes at 10Mbit. How long does it take at 20Mbit and how many minutes are saved?
The same download takes 2 minutes at 500Mbit. How long does it take at 1000Mbit and how many minutes are saved?
This calculation doesn’t even take into consideration that most servers don’t allow for gigabit downloads and that most wifi connections also don’t allow for gigabit.
A relevant part is that double the speed doesn’t save the same time.
So e.g. if a download takes 100 minutes on 10MBit, you save 50 minutes by doubling the speed.
The same download would take 10 minutes on 100MBit, doubling the bandwidth would only save 5 minutes.
And on 500MBit it’s two minutes, so doubling the bandwidth only saves one minute.
We are deep into diminishing returns here.
€58 vs €49 means an extra €108 per year. That’s quite a sum.
In my case going from the 150Mbit/s I have to gigabit would cost me €35 extra per month, €420 a year, yeah, that’s not worth it to speed up some background downloads.
I’m on Fedora, updates are frequent as well, but since they download in the background I hardly care about the speed. I see there’s a new update, so I start the download in the beginning of the day. It finishes within half an hour or an hour or so, while I continue doing my stuff, and in the evening when I’m done I run the actual update if it requires a reboot.
Not yet. A revolution takes place once it’s safer for the average person to join the revolution than to keep the status quo.
That’s how far the status quo needs to drop before a revolution happens.
Yeah, he was born here, so it’s not something new to him.
But how often do you do that? And do you need all 10 games instantly available on your PC?
I recently setup a new laptop on Fedora on a 150MBit connection. That was around 10min for downloading Fedora, 20min for installing it, another 20min or so for setting up Steam and Heroic launcher (for GOG, Epic and Amazon Games). I started the first game download on Steam while I was setting up Heroic and it was done downloading before I was done with Heroic.
Since I can only play one game at the time, I could already start playing and let the rest of my library download in the background.
A faster internet connection would have just shaved off a few minutes from the initial 10min downloading time for Fedora, but I don’t know how fast the server even lets me download the image.
I mean, if you pay €20 for gigabit, sure, why not. The only network provider who serves gigabit at my home wants €65 per month for it compared to the €30 I pay right now. That’s €420 per year extra, and there’s really no point in paying that to save a few minutes every few months or so.
Tbh, I don’t think the post is bad at all. If you have special high-bandwidth use cases that require massive speed you know that already and then the article isn’t for you.
If you say you “didn’t have fiber” I’m guessing you were on 50MBit VDSL? Then, of course, switching to gigabit makes sense.
In the blog post the author explicitly doesn’t say “Go get VDSL”, but they compare Gigabit with 500MBit. That’s not nearly that much of a difference, you’ll still be able to play a new game minutes after you bought it, but just twice as many minutes. If that at all, because if you have wifi in your home, it will likely limit your bandwidth to less than 500MBit in real use anyway.
The main point of the post is to show whether a regular user really benefits from Gigabit, and no, they don’t. Their netflix stream will not improve when going from a few hundred MBit to a Gigabit. Neither will most of their experience.
If you are lucky enough to live in a place where Gigabit costs nothing, sure, might as well. The only provider who serves Gigabit to my home wants €65 per month for that, €780 per year. That’s a lot of money for something that maybe saves me a few minutes once or twice a month.
Well, the main point is that for some demographics a situation like this is a simple mistake with no consequences while for others it’s a direct way to talk to the police.
This is so it. If I make a mistake, I’d be sorry, I’d pay for it and that’s it.
A friend of mine who works at the headquarters of a large local retailer keeps getting stopped by shop detectives of the same shop chain, even though he didn’t do anything suspicious. Well, anything apart from being the son of parents from Afghanistan.
Tbh, to me nonsense negative reviews are a good sign. They don’t influence my opinion about the product (“I’m not looking for burgers so I don’t care that this guy was disappointed that there were no burgers”), but they show me that the company doesn’t force the deletion of bad reviews.
I’ve had it a few times before that e.g. I went to a doctor with perfect 5-star-reviews, only to find out that they suck and they sue anyone who leaves negative reviews.
If I see perfect 5-stars on something, that’s when I get really sceptical. I’d never go to a doctor, a restaurant or a craftsman with perfect 5-star score.