Does router QoS help when bandwidth is exhausted?

Question

I use mobile broadband from time to time and use a 1Mbit UMTS connection. This works fine for surfing the web or streaming music. However, when I try to surf the web and stream music both at the same time the music streaming seems to hog all bandwidth as the web surfing pretty much breaks down.

I'm thinking about investing in a router with QoS settings (which my current router lacks) in order to prioritize the web traffic but I am not sure it would help. I suspect using QoS settings on a WiFi-router only helps to prioritize the traffic within the intranet and as my problem is that an outside transmitter (Rdio in this case) is flooding my 1Mbit connection, the router QoS won't help. Before making the decision of investing in a mobile broadband capable router with QoS or not, I would like to know if my suspicion is correct or not? And, if it is correct, if there are other measures that can be taken?

Answer 1

You are correct, router QoS will not help. The earliest QoS could act on an incoming packet is when that packet is received. At that point, it has already consumed your Internet connection's inbound bandwidth, which is what you were trying to protect. There really aren't any good solutions to this problem, unfortunately.

If you can limit the music streaming program to just a bit under your connection's maximum speed, that will likely help a lot. That will keep the queue depths on your ISP side much lower, reducing the latency that's killing your web surfing.