[Bloat] Bufferbloat on 4G Connexion

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Rich Brown <richb.hanover at gmail.com> writes:

>> On Oct 23, 2019, at 5:54 AM,<erik.taraldsen at telenor.com <mailto:erik.taraldsen at telenor.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> If you could influence the 4G vendors to de-bloat their equipment,
>> would you recommend BQL, L4S or codel/cake?
>
> I've been enjoying this discussion and wonder whether the work going
> on in the make-wifi-fast
> (https://lists.bufferbloat.net/pipermail/make-wifi-fast/) is relevant.
>
> I only have a 30,000 foot understanding of this work, but it seems the
> use of AQL (Airtime Queue Limit) maps better onto the vagaries of
> 4G/5G radio transmissions than BQL. Specifically, having a measurement
> of the actual time it takes to transmit a packet might give additional
> information about the current link speed, with the potential for
> adjusting the codel target, etc.

Indeed, I suspect something like AQL would work for LTE as well. At the
right level; think this might need to be in the firmware (which in turn
could push back on the host).

> Separately, I also wonder whether the Air Time Fairness algorithm
> might provide a benefit if the cellphone tower station manufacturers
> chose to get into the game.

LTE base stations already does TDMA scheduling (which they can do easily
because they are centralised and own the license band); airtime fairness
is about getting the same benefits into WiFi that LTE has been enjoying
from the get-go :)

-Toke