Rainmaker et al. I am kind of curious if the bufferbloat has got any better in your country? I see samknows is all over the subject ( ) , I've heard of cake on new CPE, docsis 4 stuff... but don't have an field data. I've busied myself since finishing up the mikrotik cake thing on a few other projects, my current one (plug! sorry!) is
https://libreqos.io which is a transparent middlebox targetted at smaller ISPs, running cake in both directions, tested to 20Gbit, 20k subscribers. It's always been best to have the down shaped at the ISP (properly), and the up at the CPE, rather than both up and down as I encouraged you to do a year or two back... if your ISP is doing the right things, oh, even more amazing results are possible. Fun demo here:
Don't know if there are actually "smaller ISPs" in your country, but it would be nice if virgin media would at least turn on docsis 3.1 PIE....
Wonderful to hear from you, Dave. I'm glad you managed to finish wrestling with Mikrotik, I know you worked long and hard on that. As for bloat, I'd suggest I don't have enough data to speak for the country (or even a single ISP) as a whole; my own connection is motoring along with cake just beautifully still, however. This was just now at peak time (for the ISP and my household), with 6 people using the 'net simultaneously - including at least 2 children streaming video from YouTube or Netflix or whatever and 1 teenager gaming while the servers hum away in the background (>30 devices total):
I think with the current (almost) national push to roll out true FTTP (Openreach, CityFibre etc) bloat is coming down naturally as a consequence. VM are, unfortunately, sticking to their RFoG plans and despite them planting fibre literally a few metres from my door my network is none the better latency or bloat wise. Such a waste.
In better news, the Openreach/BT pole leaning against my garden wall has been fitted with a FTTP CRB connector, and Openreach tell me they are actively pulling fibre in my local exchange and I'll be able to order true FTTP with them very soon. Finally!
I have already been in discussions with my preferred ISP's MD and arranged a /56 of IPv6 and a /29 of IPv4 so I can crack my knuckles and get the servers properly organised at last once it's lit. New edge router needed, I'm thinking 10G upgrades all round.
I did try to engage with VM about the absence of DOCSIS PIE and enabling it, but despite the rollout of a new far improved Hub (based on Broadcom, so no Puma chipset woes) they maintain the brick wall of deafening silence.
As for SME type ISPs, absolutely. Unlike the US, our nation is littered with everything from community projects to small ISPs through to the usual behemoths like BT and Liberty Global (VM). There are so many I shouldn't know where to begin to list them. A few have grown big (and good on them) since their start, but there are many small to medium sized outfits left, concentrating on a particular area of the country. Gone though are the days of spinning up a FreeBSD instance and starting a local ISP PoP on the fly, alas haha!
LibreQoS looks good, I'll have a proper look later when I get a chance. You may find interest in some of the smaller ISPs here, but they do tend to be FTTP based as I said. I hope you're suitably rested (ha!) and managing to find your way. Keep on battling the bogons and have a great festive period if we don't speak sooner. All the best!