Dual Q Networking: How to Prepare Your Network to Support L4S and NQB
👋 Hey there! In this article, we’ll be discussing Dual Q Networking, a technology that is coming out of the ITF and is currently in field trials with Comcast. We’ll be explaining what latency is, why it’s important, and how Dual Q Networking can help improve end-user internet performance.
Table of Contents
– What is Latency?
– The Problem with Bandwidth
– Introducing Dual Q Networking
– The Basics of Dual Q Networking
– L4S: Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput
– Non-Q Building
– How to Prepare Your Network for Dual Q Networking
– Marking and Cues
– Provisioning Network Buffers
– Pros and Cons of Dual Q Networking
– Highlights
– FAQ
What is Latency?
Latency is the delay that occurs when data is transmitted from one point to another. It’s the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from the sender to the receiver and back again. Latency is measured in milliseconds (ms) and can be affected by a number of factors, including the distance between the sender and receiver, the quality of the network connection, and the amount of traffic on the network.
The Problem with Bandwidth
For many years, network engineers have focused on bandwidth as a measure of end-user internet performance. However, as it turns out, bandwidth is a great proxy for end-user quality, but it’s an indirect proxy. With more real-time interactive types of applications, almost all of the end-user QE problems that we encounter with customers are not due to limited bandwidth, but instead to latency.
Introducing Dual Q Networking
Dual Q Networking is a technology that is coming out of the ITF and is currently in field trials with Comcast. It’s a novel approach to network queuing that allows for both low latency and high throughput. The idea is to have two distinct network queues at bottleneck links, one for normal queuing traffic and another that is optimized for real-time and interactive types of traffic.
The Basics of Dual Q Networking
There are two types of Dual Q Networking that the ITF is specifying: L4S and Non-Q Building. L4S is intended for flows that are interactive and might want to use a high bit rate, such as video conferencing or online gaming. Non-Q Building is