[Bloat] Best approach for debloating Airbnb host?

[Rich Brown]

I stayed in an Airbnb rental last week. It was nicely appointed with a very gracious host who lived in the other half of the home. They had decent internet from xfinity - I was getting 20mbps/5mpbs.

But.. they have bad bufferbloat. I was on a Zoom call and occasionally people would sound like Darth Vader. I busted out a ping test to 8.8.8.8 and sure enough, latency spiked from a nominal 10-20 msec to 2500 msec and occasionally over 4000 msec.

I had to check out before I had a chance to mention it to the Airbnb host. And I'll probably leave it alone. But I'm still wondering - if I wanted to evangelize:

1. What would I say? I know I don't want to blurt out, "your network has bufferbloat". That sounds worse than the cooties :-) I imagine that I'd mumble something about the Zoom call occasionally sounding like Darth Vader, and that I'm a network professional and recognize the symptom, and that there's a technical fix for it. I'd probably pause to see if their eyes lit up ("Oh, that happens to us all the time...") before proceeding. And then...

2. What would I recommend? Obviously, inserting something with cake into the mix would help a lot. Even if they were willing to let me examine their entire network (Comcast router, Apple Airport in our Airbnb unit, other router?) I have no idea what kind of tar baby I would be touching. I don't want to become their network admin for the rest of time.

I know Dave Täht recommends that you help your local coffee shop debloat their network. But that's a place that you develop a personal relationship and you visit often enough to answer questions during a shake-down period. And they'll probably "let you in the back" to see what's there.

Anyone have good ideas about handling this? Or should I give it up?Thanks!

Rich