Testing OpenWrt with the new ookla speedtest for testing latency under load

5GHz WiFi over my low end android phone is less than ideal for a speed test I expect. With SQM (CAKE) Speedtest result is 103/19 Mbps down/up with down/up ping of 100/20 ms. With SQM turned off, result is 107/23.3 Mbps and 99/56 ms on my phone. Distance to the Linksys EA8500 AP used for the testing was 10 feet of air.

My ISP service is a 400/20 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem to a NanoPi R4S Gateway. Actual provisioned speed is ~450/23, but I've set ingress/egress for SQM at 400/20 to stay below cable service top speed during high use times of day. The EA8500 AP is connected to the NanoPi R4S with wired back haul through a GS308T managed switch.

From a linux thin client desktop with a 2x2 Intel AX200 card that is some distance away from the EA8500 AP with intervening walls, the desktop browser Speedtest result is 340/19 Mbps and 22ms ping (unloaded only) with SQM on; and 365/23 Mbps and 20ms ping (unloaded only) with SQM off. Obviously this is a better WiFi client than my Android phone :wink:

The Waveform buffer bloat test from my thin client (so again over WiFi) with SQM is 290/18 Mbps with mean ping of 33/38/29 ms (unloaded/down/up). As is typical, Waveform runs out of throughput before my ISP service or attainable WiFi speeds top out, and at least in my location, Waveform results are so variable from test to test and time of day that I rely on it for no more than a rough indication.

From a wired desktop, Speedtest results are consistently repeatable with and without SQM and obviously the CPUs in the NanoPi R4S do not slow anything down. But same issues with the Waveform test for me: repeatability is poor and reported down/up speeds are all over the place, except never approaching the consistently repeatable speeds indicated by Speedtest.