☎️QoS vadis? Worse than a POTS Line from the Seventies!📞

In the KZN Midlands during the late seventies, we had a party telephone line that stretched 20 kilometers to the nearest dorp. It was known as the Plain Old Telphone System (POS). That old Bakelite phone made by Siemens might have occasionally hummed, but it offered crystal-clear voice quality—far superior to today’s Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions often plagued by issues on congested broadband links.

Modern broadband networks are classified as best-effort, meaning they do not inherently provide Quality of Service (QoS). In theory, technologies like Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) offer QoS, but it is rarely configured correctly due to the necessity of proper configuration on both ends of a link. However, all is not lost when it comes to achieving QoS on broadband networks.

The Challenge of QoS on Broadband

Broadband networks lack dedicated bandwidth, resulting in no guaranteed QoS. Providers typically over-provision their networks, assuming that not all users will use their maximum capacity simultaneously. Even MPLS, often perceived as superior, is subject to similar limitations since cross-connects in data centers are essentially just cables with no inherent QoS advantages over broadband.

Leveraging Uplink Control for QoS

On broadband networks, controlling traffic on the uplink is feasible. For instance, you can reserve bandwidth specifically for voice traffic, ensuring it has priority over other types of traffic. Although upstream congestion and packet loss remain potential issues, this is a common challenge across all IP networks. No provider offers dedicated bandwidth across distribution or core networks, and both MPLS and broadband are provisioned for only about 10% of their sold capacity.

Enter SD-WAN | The QoS Game Changer

Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) revolutionizes QoS by automating the management and optimization of network traffic. SD-WAN uses an aggregator in the data center to mirror the configuration applied at the uplink, reversing and applying it downstream without human intervention. This automated approach eliminates the need for complex and error-prone manual configurations associated with MPLS.

SD-WAN dynamically adapts to network conditions, such as packet loss and congestion, ensuring optimal performance even on broadband links. By implementing bandwidth adaptation, SD-WAN can detect anomalies and automatically adjust parameters to mitigate their impact, offering a more resilient solution than traditional MPLS.

Fusion's Unique Hub-and-Spoke Architecture

The key to effective QoS on broadband networks lies in Fusion’s unique hub-and-spoke architecture. This architecture enables bi-directional QoS, ensuring consistent performance across the entire network. Fusion’s SD-WAN solution not only prioritizes traffic based on its importance but also adapts in real-time to changing network conditions, providing a seamless and reliable user experience.

Wrapping, while the party telephone line from the seventies may have offered nostalgic clarity, modern SD-WAN technology, particularly Fusion’s innovative approach, brings us closer to achieving high-quality voice and data transmission on today’s broadband networks. By automating traffic management and dynamically adapting to network conditions, SD-WAN ensures that businesses can enjoy reliable and high-performance connectivity without the limitations of traditional QoS solutions.

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Ronald Bartels ensures that Internet inhabiting things are connected reliably online at Fusion Broadband South Africa - the leading specialized SD-WAN provider in South Africa. Learn more about the best SD-WAN provider in the world! 👉 Contact Fusion