Setting up dd-wrt for voip

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ralphl
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2020 22:16    Post subject: Setting up dd-wrt for voip Reply with quote
The reason I installed dd-wrt (DD-WRT v3.0-r43711 micro (07/08/20)) on my old linksys wrt54g v6 was to try to improve my voip service. I have an Obihai 202 phone plugged directly into one of the ethernet ports on the wrt54g. I use the wifi to talk to my computers and my cell phones. I run Zoom on both my computers and my cell phones. I also run Talkatone (voip app) on one cell phone. I have long had problems with calls breaking up particularly at the remote end. This indicates to me that my upload voip packets are not getting priority over other traffic either out of my router, or through the internet some place. I can cause the remote end breakup by running the upload portion of an internet speed test while talking on either the obihai phone or the Talkatone app. Running internet speed tests give me about 10mbs on download and 3.5mbs on upload.
I have set dd-wrt qos port to WAN & LAN, to give priority to the mac numbers for the Obihai (Maximum) and to my cell phone (Premium), and the download and upload to 10,000kbs/3500kbs, and Lan to 10,000. I have read a number of posts about configuring qos, but still have questions.
1. Should I have the Port set to WAN & LAN or just to WAN??
2. Default is to set MAC 00:00:00:00:00:00 to Manual. What is Manual?? Is it high or low priority? I think Mac 00:00:00:00:00:00 is for all traffic for which no Mac number has been set. I would like this to be set to lowest priority. Should that be Bulk or Manual??
3. I would like to be sure that the DSCP priority field in all voice packets is set to 46 (I think that is the correct value for voip). I don't know if my phones do that. Is there some way (command line, maybe) to force dd-wrt to set the DSCP for packets from my prioritized Mac numbers??
4. I have been looking at qos services, thinking that might be a more selective way to set priorities than using Mac numbers. If I could set services so that only Talkatone had priority from my cell phone, it would be better than giving everything on my cell phone (such as news reading) priority. Also, I would like to give Zoom a priority above anything other than Obihai and Talkatone on my cell phone. However, dd-wrt does not list those services. Is there any way I can add those services to dd-wrt??
5. Should the Packet Scheduler be set to HTB or HFSC??
6. I have seen a web site that says buffer bloat is a problem for voip. I can see where this could be a problem if the upload buffer was filled with low priority packets and a high priority voip packet came along. Depending on how the buffer(s) is/are designed in dd-wrt, the high priority packet might have to wait while the low priority packets in the buffer were emptied. Is this a problem with dd-wrt, or are the buffers designed to prevent this?? If this is a problem, can I use the command line to prevent it??? One of my Internet Speed Tests said that I had bad buffer bloat on upload!! I don't know how they could detect this.
7. Is there anything else I should be doing to get my voip running better???


Last edited by ralphl on Thu Jul 09, 2020 22:34; edited 1 time in total
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feliciano
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 0:31    Post subject: Re: Setting up dd-wrt for voip Reply with quote
ralphl wrote:
The reason I installed dd-wrt (DD-WRT v3.0-r43711 micro (07/08/20)) on my old linksys wrt54g v6 was to try to improve my voip service.

The WRT54Gv6 is a very resource-limited router (RAM, flash, and CPU), moreover if you run a recent kernel on it, so if you don't have a more capable router at hand, I recommend to keep the configurations as simple as it can get.

As I understand, your main concern is the VoIP UL UserPlane (i.e. RTP). To judge whether the issue is on the LAN/WLAN or the WAN, first run a local speed test, if possible, between your devices. If the speed is reasonable, then compare it with the Internet speed tests you get. If the LAN/WLAN speed is high enough compared with your WAN speed, QoS for WAN is what you're after. Else, your WiFi and/or router needs to be optimized first.

ralphl wrote:
I have been looking at qos services, thinking that might be a more selective way to set priorities than using Mac numbers

Prioritizing RTP would be more accurate and simple than going per MAC addresses and/or IP addresses.

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ralphl
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:02    Post subject: Reply with quote
feliciano: Thanks for responding. As a novice on Internet and dd-wrt all input on those subjects is appreciated. Your suggestion of prioritizing by the RPT service sounds good.
I also switched my qos port setting to WAN after reading your response.
Any answers to any of my other questions???

Thanks again....
kernel-panic69
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
https://www.google.com/search?q=dd-wrt+voip+site%3Aforum.dd-wrt.com

There are quite a selection of forum posts to sift through that discuss VoIP. Not sure if the wrt54* devices still have milkfish or if that is deprecated.

There are several different wiki articles as well, it seems, that discuss VoIP.

https://www.google.com/search?q=voip+dd-wrt+wiki

What I don't know, I can at least help find information to read Smile

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feliciano
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 12:20    Post subject: Reply with quote
ralphl wrote:
Any answers to any of my other questions???

Thanks again....

I'm giving you an holistic answer. We're talking about a 54Mbps 8M/2M router. You installed the latest kernel on it, so I'm not sure what compute/networking power left. VoIP don't ask for much resources as such, but if you mix it with other traffic (such as streaming), you can run into a bottleneck easily. That's why I recommend you to check your local throughput besides the Internet one, and if high enough, then makes sense to look into QoS.

RTP should be your voice. You can also Wireshark RTCP if your VoIP application supports it to learn more about the actual call stats.

And if your B leg is the same all the time, the issue could be at the other party DL instead of your side UL.

Note to @kernel-panic69: It can only run a micro build.

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kernel-panic69
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 15:10    Post subject: Reply with quote
feliciano wrote:
Note to @kernel-panic69: It can only run a micro build.


Correct. I sometimes forget, even after pointing the user to the builds to update to and where to find the micro_generic.bin files EmbarassedLaughing

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ralphl
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 0:06    Post subject: Reply with quote
I upgraded my wrt54g to the very latest dd-wrt (07-09-2020-r43718). After bricking and unbricking (thanks to the Peacock page explaining use of ping (tt=100, and use of tftp) I got everything to work pretty well. I had problems changing settings, when I clicked Apply. Several times the router settings page just went blank and I couldn't reconnect to 192.168.1.1 until I did a power cycle. One time it happened was when I changed the Tx Power to 100 and clicked Apply.
I also found that I couldn't change the QOS/Packet Scheduler to HFSC. As long as I had the HFCS setting, I couldn't connect my computer to 192.168.1.1. When I change it back to HTB and power cycled the router, everything worked.

Both of these failures look like bugs to me. I don't think I was doing something wrong.

At the suggestion of repliers to this post I stopped prioritizing by Mac # and instead set the Service Priority of RTP to Maximum. So far this has worked quite well on my voip phones. I have the Talkatone voip app on my cell phone and an Obihai voip house phone. When at home Talkatone connects through wifi, and the Obihai connects directly to an ethernet port on the wrt54g. When I have one viop phone call the other voip phone, both phones are simultaneously uplinking and downlinking through the wrt54g, really stressing the voice latency. Yet both phones performed quite well with no voice breakup. So far I am impressed and glad I went through all the trouble of a dd-wrt install.
kernel-panic69
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 0:28    Post subject: Reply with quote
Apply may or may not work as expected. "Save" each page, and when you are done, go to either the "Services" or "Administration" page and click the red "Reboot" button. And don't use Chromium-based browsers for the webUI, which is what it sounds like you did. Also, when you do use "Apply", some services restart, so it may take a minute or two to regain access. This is why I don't use "Apply" most of the time.
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feliciano
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
ralphl wrote:
So far I am impressed and glad I went through all the trouble of a dd-wrt install.

Glad it's working for you now.

On the other hand, for the quirks you may have faced, keep in mind you are using a micro build, in which the developers trimmed down every functionality and options to a mimimun, in order to fit into barely 2MegaBytes of flash memory of a 14+ years old router. So, if you do like dd-wrt and what can offer, consider trading-up your router when you find the chance.

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Per Yngve Berg
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:14    Post subject: Reply with quote
This router have a 200 Mhz CPU. Enablig QOS may overload the CPU and slow throughput down.
ralphl
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2020 20:49    Post subject: Reply with quote
I am trying to improve my VOIP that works thru Talkatone over wifi. After using dd-wrt for over a month with QOS Setting Port WAN and Services Priority set so rtp is Maximum priority, I have found it a big improvement for voip. However, I am still having some breakup on the local end (my cell phone Talkatone) running over wifi. So to improve that I am thinking of setting my "QOS Settings" to "LAN & WLAN" instead of "WAN". Note that my "hone" phone that is plugged into an Ethernet port on my WRT54G router does not seem to get the voice breakup that my cell phone Talkatone gets using wifi.

Would both LAN & WLAN priority help with voip packets going over wifi, or does the term LAN mean just Ethernet LAN and not wifi LAN???

Is there any other way to give priority to my voip packets over wifi???


Last edited by ralphl on Wed Sep 02, 2020 22:28; edited 1 time in total
msoengineer
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2020 21:34    Post subject: Reply with quote
you really should look for a more powerful cheap router if you can....

TP-Link Archer C7v2, Amazon Archer A7v5.

better yet, find a used R7800 for around $100.

Those will have a lot more usability at an affordable price.

You're asking a moped to yield motorcycle results...it's just too old of a device.

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ralphl
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2020 23:09    Post subject: Reply with quote
I understand that my router is old. In fact I have a new one ordered that was due yesterday, but I guess with the dismantling of the post office its stuck someplace.

However, what I am really trying to do is understand how to use dd-wrt with voip. My real question was whether setting the "QOS Setting" to LAN & WLAN would apply to wifi priorities, or is there some other way that would set wifi priorities.
No amount of router power is going to work if I can't set priorities. The reason I turned to dd.wrt is that I have bought and returned 2 new routers, because the priority feature didn't work for voip. So far dd.wrt (even on and old router) works much better than the new routers I returned, when it comes to prioritizing voip.
msoengineer
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:58    Post subject: Reply with quote
to make voip work well, you need to have Q.o.S. turned on and only applied to the WAN, there is nothing to prioritize on the LAN&WLAN for qos, your internal network isn't the issue, the weak cpu is the weak part that can't do all that work.

Then, only use HTB and FQ_Codel, if it's even there on the limited router capabilities. Set your DL limit to 90% of your provisioned DL speed and upload should be set the same way.

Make sure ACK is checked and RST...that's all that you need to do.

_________________
FORUM RULES

TIPS/TRICKS: Best QCA Wifi Settings | Latency tricks | QoS Port priority | NEVER USE MU-MIMO |
Why to NOT use MU-MIMO | Max Wifi Pwr by Country | Linux Wifi Pwr | AC MCS & AX MCS | QCA 5Ghz chnls to use | WIFI Freq WIKI | TFTP R7800 | Don't buy AX | IPERF3 How-To

[R9000]52396 nightly (Main Router)
[EA8500]43192 & 45493 (2xOffsite)
[R7800] resting
[WDR3600]BS 44715 (Offsite)
[A7v5]BS 43038 (Offsite+spare napping)
feliciano
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Joined: 24 Oct 2008
Posts: 1079
Location: Latin America

PostPosted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 23:04    Post subject: Reply with quote
ralphl wrote:
I understand that my router is old. In fact I have a new one ordered that was due yesterday, but I guess with the dismantling of the post office its stuck someplace.

However, what I am really trying to do is understand how to use dd-wrt with voip.

Because your router is resource limited, and you don't want to discard it just yet, you can check the cpu and memory usage with different dd-wrt builds -starting with 14929 K24 std- and stick with the one that suites it better. Then you could really check QoS and firewall settings with less factors affecting your observations.

Regarding VoIP: normally RTP travels over UDP, not TCP.

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