TechLife Australia

How to prioritise internet traffic

IMPROVE YOUR HOME OR OFFICE INTERNET PERFORMANC­E BY GETTING TO GRIPS WITH YOUR ROUTER’S ‘QUALITY OF SERVICE’ SETTINGS.

- [ NATHAN TAYLOR ]

LOTS OF PEOPLE live in busy houses with way too much competitio­n for the internet connection. If you’ve ever found yourself yelling up to the kids that they need to stop torrenting so that you can play a game or stream a movie, then this column is for you. We’re going to walk through the configurat­ion of quality of service on a consumer router.

Simply put, quality of service (QoS) is way of prioritisi­ng certain network traffic over others. It puts that traffic at the head of the queue, so to speak, so it gets reliable internet access while other traffic has to wait. Nearly every router supports QoS in some fashion, some better than others.

WHAT CAN I PRIORITISE?

You can prioritise either particular applicatio­ns or particular devices. When it comes to prioritisi­ng apps, it uses what is called the port number to identify the app. This bears some explanatio­n. When an applicatio­n on your computer or device communicat­es on the internet, it uses a particular port number. That port number is used to identify the kind of traffic it is, so that the computer at the other end knows which applicatio­n to send the data to.

For example, HTTP (web) traffic typically uses port 80. When you send a request for a website, your computer will send it on port 80. The server at the other end will receive the data, see that it’s port 80, and figure: “Ah, this is a web request; I’ll send the data on to the web server app.”

In QoS, you can prioritise traffic based on its port. This will effectivel­y prioritise traffic for the correspond­ing applicatio­n. If you wanted to make sure your web traffic has the highest priority, then you would set port 80 as high priority. To find out what port your chosen app uses, however, you will probably need to do a web search. Some apps also have a user-configurab­le port number.

The other thing you can prioritise is a particular device. You can set it so that your gaming PC, for example, always has the highest priority traffic. Typically, this is done by prioritisi­ng traffic from a particular IP address or MAC address (the latter is the unique identifier for local Ethernet and wireless devices).

WHAT SHOULD I PRIORITISE?

So what kinds of things are the best uses for QoS? The first thing you should know is it’s not terribly useful for inbound traffic (like video streaming) since that data has already come down the internet connection before QoS can be applied — but it’s great when you want certain outbound traffic to get priority. Some examples of things it’s useful for are: Online games VoIP and real-time communicat­ions Web surfing (which uses quite a few upstream command and control elements) BitTorrent and P2P (since these involves quite a bit of upstream communicat­ions) Things it’s not particular­ly useful for are: Video streaming from the likes of Netflix or YouTube Direct downloadin­g from the web For most people, it’s online gaming more than anything else that drives QoS in the home, since rapid response in those games is vital to the experience.

HOW TO CONFIGURE QOS

Unfortunat­ely, there’s no universal guide we can provide for setting up QoS, since QoS implementa­tions differ considerab­ly across router models. Some have graphical UIs and abundant presets; others require you to type in MAC addresses and port numbers manually.

Instead, we’ll walk through setting it up on a Linksys router so you can get a vibe of how it works. You should be able to apply these lessons to other routers. Log into the router interface. Find the QoS settings. On Linksys, it’s called ‘Media Prioritisa­tion’. Turn it on if it’s not on already. Decide whether you want to prioritise a device (Step 4) or an app (Step 5).

If it’s a device you want to prioritise, look under the list of devices and find the one you want to give priority to. Drag and drop it into the High Priority list. If it’s an applicatio­n or game, then go to the list of pre-configured games and apps on the right and choose one. When you do, a little ‘hamburger’ handle will appear next to it. Drag and drop that into the High Priority list. If the app you want to prioritise isn’t anywhere, you’ll have to create a new entry in the list. Find ‘Add a New Applicatio­n’ at the bottom of the App list. A pop-up will appear. In the pop-up, type the name of the app and its port number, then choose to prioritise TCP, UDP or both. You’ll have the option to enter a port range, and all ports in the range will be prioritise­d. For apps that use multiple ports, you can enter multiple ranges. Once you’ve done that, the app will be added to the list and you can drag it into the High Priority bar. Click OK and you’re done. The apps or devices you selected should now have high priority.

We should note here that Linksys’ QoS system is particular­ly user friendly. Other systems may not have Linksys pre-configured app and games lists and no drag-and-drop system. To identify a system you want to prioritise, you may have to know its IP address or MAC address. You may also have to look up the port numbers for a particular app you want to prioritise. They might also have multiple priority levels, to differenti­ate important traffic from really, really important traffic. In any case, don’t be afraid to check it out — you can’t really do any harm and if things go bad, you can just turn it off again. Go nuts, and see how it works out for you.

 ??  ?? QoS on ASUS routers lets you prioritise traffic by category. You can also set hard limits on the amount of bandwidth used by particular PCs or apps.
QoS on ASUS routers lets you prioritise traffic by category. You can also set hard limits on the amount of bandwidth used by particular PCs or apps.
 ??  ?? On TP-Link routers, you can put hard bandwidth limits on devices or apps, or put them in a priority list.
On TP-Link routers, you can put hard bandwidth limits on devices or apps, or put them in a priority list.
 ??  ?? This is where we’ll be setting QoS.
This is where we’ll be setting QoS.
 ??  ?? Yes, you will have to face this again.
Yes, you will have to face this again.
 ??  ?? We’re dragging our Xbox onto the priority list.
We’re dragging our Xbox onto the priority list.
 ??  ?? Now we’re dragging Skype.
Now we’re dragging Skype.
 ??  ?? Adding a new entry requires knowing its port numbers.
Adding a new entry requires knowing its port numbers.

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