QoS in APs ?
QoS in APs ?
Hey there! I moved to a new place and wanted better internet for gaming. I tried using a bridge mode with my old Netgear XR500, but at the new location I got a Huawei router. Since it didn’t support bridge settings, I ended up making my XR500 an access point. In AP mode it loses some features like QoS, which is a big issue. My partner and I rely on streaming and online play, and I’m worried about losing those benefits. Now I have two choices: either switch to a slower 30mbit DSL plan or find another routing setup, even though I can’t skip the ISP router. Any advice would be great! Thanks!
Could you clarify your concerns? Are you asking if QoS is necessary for your setup and what might happen if it's missing?
It's not perfect, but you could always enable double-NAT. (shock horror) If you can configure the Netgear as a DMZ on the ISP router, it should let you use all features without needing to interact with the ISP router afterward. There’s a good point though—you might not need QoS right now since you’ll have a faster connection. Just be mindful and set throttling limits in games like Steam so your connection never gets maxed out. I’d definitely pick 125Mbit without QoS over 30Mbit with QoS any time.
Suggest using the Netgear DM200, update its firmware to OpenWrt, pull the DSL modem firmware from a FritzBox for vectoring, keep your XR500 as an access point or switch to bridge mode, and finish with the Huawei device.
It's really surprising how a hybrid service can function at all. I've experimented with merging VDSL and LTE myself, but it turned out to be a complete mess—largely because of mismatched latency and MTU sizes. Probably an ISP would need to adjust it for it to work properly.
I checked how I could achieve that. The router from the XPS discussion includes an M.2 port, which fits your need for a cellular modem card with a SIM slot. If you locate one with an M.2 slot, I suggest purchasing the Snapdragon X5 modem card on AliExpress. You’ll need an HP computer to install the firmware, and using bridge mode with OpenWrt might perform better than the ISP’s setup—especially if you’re comfortable with the process. This option is likely more cost-effective than buying separate cellular USB modems.
It was a challenging experience trying to implement a hybrid setup on pfSense. The 4G latency would spike to 2000ms during busy times, leading the router to believe it was offline, causing the firewall to restart and lose all connections. Once it came back online, latency dropped again. This cycle continued until I turned off the 4G connection. It’s possible this issue isn’t unique to your setup, but I doubt the lack of consistent management contributed to the problem.