[Bloat] How about a topical LWN article on demonstrating the real-world goodness of CAKE?

[Tom Henderson]

On 8/9/20 11:27 AM, David Collier-Brown wrote:
>  I suspect not enough people are aware of the later efforts of the 
> bufferbloat team, so I'm thinking of one or two articles, starting 
> with LWN and an audience of aficionados.
>
> The core community is aware of what we've done, but in my view we 
> haven't converted "grandma". Grandma, as well as a whole bunch of 
> ordinary engineers and partners of engineers, are dependent on 
> debloated performance because they're working at home now, and 
> competing with granddaughter playing video games while they're trying 
> to hold a video call.
>
> Right now, my colleagues at work suffer from more than a second of 
> bloat-related lag. They therefore tend to speak over each other on 
> con-calls, apologize, start again and talk over each other, again. 
> After a little while, the picture becomes a distinctly silly one: a 
> bunch of grown adults putting their hands up and waving, like little 
> kids in school. No-one has called out “me, me, teacher” yet, but I 
> expect it any time.
>
> I propose we show the results in terms that we can explain to Grandma, 
> specifically concentrating on functioning VOIP. I just upgraded to 
> Fedora 31, and the networking is absolutely stock, so I make a perfect 
> victim/guinea-pig (;-))
>
> Who's interested?

Are the risks and tradeoffs well enough understood (and visible enough 
for troubleshooting) to recommend broader deployment?

I recently gave openwrt a try on some hardware that I ultimately 
concluded was insufficient for the job.  Fairly soon after changing out 
my access point, I started getting complaints of Wi-Fi dropping in my 
household, especially when someone was trying to videoconference.  I 
discovered that my AP was spontaneously rebooting, and the box was 
getting hot.

I am also wondering about what features will be lost if/when the device 
is flashed from the commercial firmware.  Does openwrt have access to 
all of the available Wi-Fi 11ac rates, and how does rate control 
compare?  The commercial devices offer proprietary media/device 
prioritization settings; does CAKE/SQM outperform them?  Many commercial 
APs or mesh systems have smartphone apps with features like parental 
controls; that kind of control will be lost.  What about 11ax support?

- Tom