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I have an issue where my video calls / meetings start to lag every few minutes. I am using Wifi and download 91 mbps and upload 9.45 mbps.

I called Spectrum (my ISP) and the guy told me I was using an old router, so I bought a new dual band one. I ran an internet speed test before and after, and it shows that my internet is faster, but that hasn't helped with the intermittent choppiness during my video meetings.

I'm not sure how to "debug" this issue. Is it an issue with my ISP, my modem, or my router? Is there a way to definitively find what the issue is?

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Look into bufferbloat. It could be that you're hitting intermittent congestion, but your router or modem is hiding the congestion by buffering too many packets, which just increases lag without any benefit, and blocks TCP's Congestion Control algorithms from sensing the congestion and working to alleviate it (this ugly scenario is called bufferbloat).

The solution is to use a smarter packet scheduling algorithm that uses ECN (or just drops packets) before buffers become bloated, so congestion control can kick in before lag happens.

You can use tools like http://dslreports.com/speedtest or Flent to measure bufferbloat on your Internet connection.

You can fix bufferbloat yourself by loading a recent version of OpenWrt on your router and enabling Cake or FQ-CoDel, the best smart queueing algorithms for combatting bufferbloat.

If you would rather purchase a turn-key solution, look at IQrouter from evenroute.com.

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  • hi spiff! so it says my bufferbloat score is B, dslreports.com/speedtest/39731179 . i'll look into openwrt now and tell you how it goes. i'm surprised the issue still happens even with my new dual band router though?
    – bigpotato
    Oct 1, 2018 at 19:18
  • @Edmund Router vendors have been slow to fix bufferbloat. Most vendors seem to use embedded Linux of some flavor, but seem to be years behind OpenWrt. So it doesn't matter if you have a state-of-the-art high-end home gateway wireless router, it probably has a bufferbloat problem. Bufferbloat is an issue of how your router (or modem, or Wi-Fi AP, etc.) deals with receiving packets on one interface faster than it can send them out on another interface. This is a situation that can happen no matter how fast or slow your router or your Wi-Fi or your broadband service is.
    – Spiff
    Oct 1, 2018 at 22:24

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