Need BT Home Hub 3 alternative so i can use QoS with my SureSignal

[CheesyCheese]

I love my SureSignal, but voice quality is a real PITA when others are placing a heavy load on the broadband connection, e.g. with torrents or streaming. My ISP is BT, services is ADSL2+ (not Infinity) and we get 22Mbit/s downstream and 1.1Mbit/s upstream. As I live in a small village it is unlikely I will get a good quality 3G signal indoors any time soon, so it looks like I'm stuck with the SureSignal for the near future.

The BT-supplied Home Hub 3 doesn't support QoS, unless someone here can tell me different, so what I am after is a recommendation for a new ADSL modem/router with at least 300N Wifi and most importantly user-configurable QoS so that I can give priority to the SureSignal and thus ensure good voice quality regardless of what I or the rest of the family are doing on the broadband connection. Although I'm not price-sensitive I'd prefer to pay £100 or less.

[Retired-Dave]

Hi CheesyCheese,

We can't offer specific recommendations for third party routers - I'm sure our eForum community will be happy to chip in with their experiences, though.

What we can do, however, is just suggest a couple of things which you may want to check to see if they help at all with the quality that you're getting. You may have these sorted already, but if a few small settings adjustments save you purchasing a replacement, then that's money saved, so it's best to check!

Firstly, as you say you're using a BT Home Hub, can you check that you have port 1723 open for forwarding as well as the usual ports (8, 50, 123, 500, 4500)? We have had feedback from Home Hub users that this has proven beneficial to their Sure Signal performance.

Also, can you check that the MTU on your server is set to either 1500 or the maximum value allowed (if this is lower).

Dave

[boe32]

place the sure signal in dmz this will allow all ports to be open for the suresignal, and firewall still protects, it just opens all ports.

[CheesyCheese]

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@boe32 wrote:

place the sure signal in dmz this will allow all ports to be open for the suresignal, and firewall still protects, it just opens all ports.

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Thanks, but it's not about security - the system works fine, it is about bandwidth and ensuring that the SureSignal gets an appropriate level when other computers are making competing demands on the broadband connection. I can see a very clear correlation between call quality and other activity, and when I stop whatever is running the call quality becomes crystal clear again. On a 22Mbit pipe we have plenty of bandwidth to go around, but some apps will take everything they can at the expense of everything else - hence the desire to guarantee the SureSignal what it needs via QOS settings. 

And to answer the earlier comment - you can't set MTU on the BT HH3. 

[philip42h]

As you say, the BT HH3 doesn't support QoS ... that apart the SS works perfectly happily with the HH3 - it's simple plug and play, no messing around with port forwarding required, no need to place the SS in a DMZ.

I am also looking for a HH3 replacement that provides QoS support and am considering:

• The Draytek Vigor 2850n
• The Billion BiPAC 7800N

Both appear to have the required QoS support but since I don't yet have experience of either I can't say for sure. Both are quite expensive.

Note that [router based] QoS only helps with upstream traffic - i.e. helps others to here you clearly. The router can't influence the priority of the traffic it receives and by the time it gets to the router it's probably 'too late' unless you have a very busy internal network.

[Retired-Dave]

Hi CheesyCheese,

Apologies - I don't have a BT Home Hub 3 myself, but in general cases we've found an MTU of 1500 helps where possible due to the packet size. If it's not set high enough, larger packets can be lost, which in turn compromises quality of signal. Just thought it was worth throwing in.

As I mentioned, it's good to see a couple of the guys here looking to help based on their own findings, though.

Dave

[rookie2013]

apologies, wrong thread