In the IQrouter IQ Optimization page, there is an option in the Advanced Traffic Shaping Options section that optionally enables 4-tiers of traffic isolation, vs the default 3-tier.

It looks like this when enabled:

This article will explain why this option might be helpful if there is active gaming or videoconferencing use in the household.

Many games and videoconferencing applications are now marking their time-sensitive traffic with unique markings known as DSCP, which is a field in the packets indicating the relative priority of the packet. By default, most packets have a zero in this field (known as CS0), which means ‘best Effort’.

Certain types of traffic are very time sensitive, such as Voice calls, and these are typically marked with a CS6 or CS7 marking which is the highest priority, and traffic managers should ensure that these take precedence over other traffic types.

On the IQrouter, the default is a three-tier priority scheme with:

• Voice – Traffic marked as CS6 or CS7

• Best-Effort – All other (or marked CS0) or any unmarked traffic

• Lowest- Bulk traffic (marked CS1)

With videoconferencing and games, we have a category that is also time-sensitive but is also much heavier (video packets are much larger than voice packets), so we want it to go below voice, but above best effort. This now requires an extra tier between Best Effort and Voice, which is enabled by this option.

This four-tier priority scheme (highest to lowest priority) is:

• Latency Sensitive and VoIP traffic

o Marks: CS7, CS6, CS5, CS4, Expedited Forwarding (EF) Voice Admit (VA)

• Video traffic for video conferencing / streaming & gaming

o Marks: Assured Forwarding (AF)4x, AF3x, AF2x, CS3, CS2, TOS4, TOS1

• Best Effort (CS0, AF1x, Type of Service (TOS)2 and unmarked traffic lands here)

• Bulk (traffic marked CS1)

Note that any traffic (but bulk) can consume as much capacity as needed if there is no competing traffic, so Best Effort is usually consuming almost all of it. But as soon as VoIP or Video needs capacity, they get it. Voice is guaranteed a minimum of 10% of total capacity should it need it.

Alert:

It’s been noted that certain game platforms (notably Steam) are being targeted by ISPs and backbone providers as sending too much data and (automatically or on purpose) setting the DSCP on packets from these servers to CS1 (bulk), which means that downloads are very slow, as they land in the bulk inbound bucket, but more importantly, it seems gaming activity packets are also getting marked with CS1 (due to the origin) and also wind up in the bulk bucket, and they are last-in-line to get out of the router. Also, some ISPs historically would mark all packets, regardless of origin, with CS1. This likely was a misconfiguration, as we see this less and less, but it’s still a thing. This is absolutely NOT what you want, so the fix is to clear out DSCP on incoming packets, as we know they can’t be trusted (at least for gaming purposes). Go to Configure->IQ Optimization and then scroll to the bottom of the page. Under the Advanced Traffic Shaping Options, click the Disable Inbound DSCP Service checkbox. That will clear out all DSCP from inbound packets and use a single best-effort process where small, frequent packets (like VoIP or gaming) will precede larger bulk flows. So, the traffic is still optimized.

Videoconferencing app notes:

Please look up the latest information from your conferencing provider on what the ideal settings are for your Operating System. Many already mark the traffic, while others require administrative options to be set. Zoom users should read this article

Gaming notes:

The latest console operating systems now support automatic DSCP marking but might require the user to enable this option. See this for Xbox

For other consoles or games that do not mark their traffic, we have further settings that can be configured to boost gaming traffic, which is described in this downloadable PDF article.

Note: be careful of tagging traffic incorrectly; just because CS7 is the highest priority is not a reason to try and make 100% of the console traffic have that mark. Your ISP or backbone peering systems look for evidence of people trying to game the system (pun intended) and will, at best blank out the marks, at worst, drop or de-prioritize the stream. If the console traffic has AF33, it is much more likely to survive intact all the way to the destination. Finally, some ISPs clear all DSCPs from the customer network, as they want to control priorities, so the primary impact of DSCPs is how they compete in the IQrouter for egress priority.