What is Router Quality of Service (QoS) and Why Should You Care?

Your internet connection can be thought of as a highway on which many different types of “vehicles” travel. These vehicles can include everything from casual browsing, streaming, and emailing (like Sunday drivers), to large data transfers and backups (like long-haul truckers), to online gaming and video conferencing (like average commuters), and even critical online services like emergency communications (like emergency services vehicles). All of these vehicles are traveling in the same direction, but the urgency and importance of their journeys can vary greatly.

Just like on a highway, it’s important for the traffic to flow smoothly, ensuring that all vehicles can reach their destinations in a timely and efficient manner. This is where Quality of Service (QoS) comes in, it helps to prioritize and manage the traffic on the internet highway. For example, QoS would ensure that important and time-sensitive traffic such as emergency services or video conferencing would be given priority over less important traffic such as streaming or casual browsing. This is similar to how an ambulance would be given priority on a highway to avoid getting stuck in a traffic jam. With QoS, you can ensure that your internet connection is running smoothly and that all types of traffic are able to reach their destinations with minimal delays or interruptions.

Data traveling over your internet connection works the same way. All types of traffic, voice, video, file transfer, applications, and plain old browsing all share the same bandwidth. Certain types of data traffic, large file downloads, for example, can cause traffic to back up. When this happens, voice calls over SIP trunking can experience jitter and lag, in other words, poor audio quality. Quality of Service, or QoS, is a router feature designed to help. It’s a bit like an HOV lane for your voice traffic.

Quality of Service (QoS), also known as traffic shaping, is a technique used to assign priorities to different devices and services operating on a network. This allows for control over the amount of bandwidth each device or service is allocated, based on the type of activity it is performing and its level of fault-tolerance. For example, in the event of packet loss during a file transfer, QoS will ensure that the lost packets are resent until all are received, minimizing disruption. However, in real-time applications such as voice and video, lost packets cannot be resent and will result in a noticeable lag or glitch, negatively impacting the user experience. With proper configuration, QoS can accurately identify different types of traffic and prioritize them to ensure uninterrupted packet flow for critical applications.

Some routers include the option of automated QoS handling. They automatically choose which traffic gets priority, putting video and voice ahead of file downloads, for instance. The intelligence behind each vendor’s QoS functionality varies according to the quality of the algorithm in use and the processor power available to run it.

Quality of Service is particularly important for businesses using SIP trunking for their voice communications. Good audio quality is essential, so it is worth investing in a router that supports QoS. The good news is that most modern routers do, so it is likely that yours has this capability. It may or may not require some configuration, but even if it does, it will be well worth the effort. Consult your router’s manual or control panel for more details and instructions. Of course, we’re happy to help as well.

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