pfSense Router Tuning v2.4.4

I just gave this a try and moved my buffer bloat score from a B to an A.  I'm going to assume that's good   My FIOS connection is decent at an advertised 75/75.  Typically, the speed test programs report closer to 85/85... which brings us to the point of this comment.  

The video was great... my only complaint was that he went a bit fast.  I've been using pfSense for years and am familiar with the interface.  I found I needed to pause the video and rewind a few times to make sure I didnt miss some of the details.

A point that was glossed over was the bandwidth settings for the limiters.  These need to be set to the upload/download speed of your internet connection.  But it's important to keep in mind that what you are doing in pfSense is setting up a rate limiter.  If you set the numbers lower than your connection will allow, you'll get a great buffer bloat score but you'll slow your network throughput to whatever value you chose.  If you set the number too high, the rate limiter wont come into play and you'll be subjected to the same performance and buffer bloat you had prior to making the changes.

The idea is to let pfSense do the rate limiting closer to home.  Letting your provider do it for you increases latency... and that's what we are really trying to avoid.

So to minimize latency, my suggestion is to first do a speed test to find out what your connection is capable of, then set the bandwidth of the limiters in pfSense to those numbers.  Of course Mike's suggestion to adjust the queue size add another dimension to the optimizations.  Fortunately, after it's all set up, making these changes is really easy.  My only concern is that someday my connection will receive a free speed upgrade and I'll have forgotten that I need to adjust the limiter to make use of it! 

--Don

If you have cable Internet service, please note that DOCSIS 3.1 provides an advanced rate control/queue management mechanism that will do this for you--if you have a DOCSIS 3.1-capable modem and an appropriate provider plan.

https://www.cablelabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/DOCSIS-AQM_May2014.pdf

The active queue management mechanism was intended to target Bufferbloat.  "AQM" is the specific feature of the standard for this.

They have to have a rate plan that explicitly terminates using a DOCSIS 3.1 CMTS.  For a lot of the people in the states, that's a gigabit-capable plan.  Also, its a standards requirement; so any consumer off the shelf gigabit-capable modem that uses DOCSIS 3.1 should support it.

Some DOCSIS 3.0 modems support it optionally, but 3.1 requires the implementation.

The technical committee studied several Codel variants as well as a few other rate control options before settling on PIE.

The reason why I mentioned this is that for a lot of people (Cable users with the latest standard), rate control/queue management may already be addressed before the traffic hits your router or firewall.  Doing it twice may result in an non-optimal experience.

BTW: it goes without saying, that if you can substantively test and verify an improvement with one of the newer speedtests, I'd keep your rate control configuration in place.