Home network - do I need QoS?

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I'm planning to install a home network with the following hardware:

  • Netgear UTM50-100 ProSecure
  • Netgear ProSafe JGS524PE (24 Port switch, 12 Port PoE)
  • ESXi Server w/ 2 VM's (AWS Storage Gateway & 3CX IP PBX)
  • Cisco 7941 IP Phone
  • Ubiquiti UAP Access Point

I may only have two to three IP phones on this network, and I can't imagine more than two calls at maximum. My connection is a 10/1 DSL (ouch, I know. However I'll soon be getting Fiber which is why I'll need to replace my land line with an IP PBX.) Does an environment as small as this need QoS? I should also state that there may be five to six computers not including the two VM's pulling bandwidth at times.

Thanks,

Brent

brentaarnold

Posted 2016-02-04T15:57:45.373

Reputation: 29

You need to VLAN out the phones and give them realtime priority – Linef4ult – 2016-02-04T16:26:38.787

Is creating a VLAN for QoS about the equivalent to creating a GPO? I guess what I'm asking is, in an environment such as this, does it make sense to create a VLAN for the phones or just QoS the port? – brentaarnold – 2016-02-04T16:32:19.093

Answers

1

If you connect everything, and your phone audio breaks up or you start dropping calls, then you need QoS. It's not strictly correlated with number of machines on your network - you could have 2 machines on a network and if one machine is coming close to maxing out the network, and the other system is a phone, you'll need QoS.

It's possible you could do QoS correctly on your home network, but still experience the above occasionally because your residental ISP is not prioritizing your voice traffic. A typical solution for a business is to acquire a second ISP (e.g. MPLS provider) that does prioritize voice traffic.

does it make sense to create a VLAN for the phones

By putting the phones in their own VLAN you avoid the possibility of any traffic interfering with them at all. Without a VLAN phones will still be responding to broadcast and possibly multicast messages and if there is an excessive amount of this traffic it could still affect the phone.

VLAN is also more secure as nodes outside the VLAN cannot snoop traffic at all.

LawrenceC

Posted 2016-02-04T15:57:45.373

Reputation: 63 487

Thanks so much for your detailed response! This definitely helps me know which direction to go in. – brentaarnold – 2016-02-04T17:02:49.000

To add to the scenario, I'm going to have five gaming rigs set up for the purposes of a team. I don't necessarily want these guys traversing my work files/servers, however I do want them to be able to access the WiFi and NAS. Should I put Wifi and NAS on a separate VLAN as well? – brentaarnold – 2016-02-04T17:06:24.077

Yes, obviously. – Ramhound – 2016-02-04T17:13:50.227

Asked: 2016-02-04T15:57:45.373

Viewed: 241 times

Active: 2016-02-04T16:52:00.350