I found many threads and websites discussing this, but I can’t pin down the bottom line.
Is any particular action advisable for the novice end-user to reduce the apparent “bufferbloat” on Wifi? After applying SQM to my WAN interface, I have have +0 ms increase in latency on a wired connection. However, I have >40 ms increase in latency on wireless connections under load in the best case scenario (5 Ghz radio, sitting across the room).
E.g., should I add another SQM instance to each wireless interface, and tweak its bufferbloat settings the same way, on top of the SQM on WAN?
Context: I installed OpenWRT 24.10.2 (latest) on WR3000 v1 (a MediaTek MT7981BA device). I did the Waveform bufferbloat test on a wired connection and initially had a “B” grade. I applied fq_codel and simple.qos to my WAN interface and now have an A+ grade with 0 ms increase in latency on wired connection. Incidentally, my speeds fell by >30%, but they’re still faster than I need; the substantial drop in speed is the reason I went with fq_codel.
Is any particular action advisable for the novice end-user to reduce the apparent “bufferbloat” on Wifi?
The short answer is no.
The slightly longer answer is, wireless connections are too hectic to even try to optimize. There are uncorrectable factors such as interference and congestion. All you can do is to find a channel that’s least affected by those factors.
Install luci-app-attendedsysupgrade and upgrade to 24.10.4 (latest)
It is imperative you select country code to use 5GHz band, and auto select channel to get one withoutinterference. Default channel 36 without country code will overlap with all possible default settings of your neighbours.
Still on totally free channel you will get +10-20ms having multiple, esp older clients.
Please connect to your OpenWrt device using ssh and copy the output of the following commands and post it here using the "Preformatted text </> " button (red circle; this works best in the 'Markdown' composer view in the blue oval):
Remember to redact passwords, VPN keys, MAC addresses and any public IP addresses you may have:
Since OpenWRT handles your WiFi too and it’s a MT79 device you have fq_codel built into the WiFi which might already be working with the default values for AQL. More info here How OpenWrt Vanquishes Bufferbloat
