Why doesn't Apple support QoS on their Airport devices?

[jmpage2]

I was going to pick up a new Airport Extreme today, as I've been having a few issues with my 3-4 year old Netgear router.

I was somewhat floored to discover (via Google searching) that Apple have never supported QoS (Quality of service) on their routers.

Is there some rationale for this?

I have IP phone services (both a work phone that connects via a SIP gateway as well as Ooma VoIP home phone service) and to get reliable performance QoS is needed.

I'm really just looking for insight, since it appears I will have to go with a non Apple product to fill this gap.

 

[marzer]

I was going to pick up a new Airport Extreme today, as I've been having a few issues with my 3-4 year old Netgear router.

I was somewhat floored to discover (via Google searching) that Apple have never supported QoS (Quality of service) on their routers.

Is there some rationale for this?

I have IP phone services (both a work phone that connects via a SIP gateway as well as Ooma VoIP home phone service) and to get reliable performance QoS is needed.

I'm really just looking for insight, since it appears I will have to go with a non Apple product to fill this gap.

I connect my VOIP router (Grandstream) between my ISP router (Zyxel) and Airport Extreme. Of course, you need both a WAN and LAN port to daisy chain like that.

On the other hand, I have operated the Grandstream behind the Airport on occasion with no noticeable degradation of VOIP service.

 

[ProphetX]

Seriously, I'm confused as to why they don't offer it as well. Or any other modern router features for that matter...

 

[jmpage2]

I have an Ooma device but I have zero desire to make it the primary interface from my cable modem to the rest of my network.

It is a bit mind boggling to me that Apple does not support this when even $50 budget routers offer it.

Oh well, if the wireless performance of the Airport Extreme router is really good I can always throw it in bridging mode and put it behind a more capable router.

 

[sjinsjca]

I avoided buying Apple networking gear for years because of their lack of QoS. Finally tried it and found it worked better than my old router WITH QoS did, by a large margin. And the auto-backup capability of the Time Capsule is just so nice. Recommended.

 

[jmpage2]

I avoided buying Apple networking gear for years because of their lack of QoS. Finally tried it and found it worked better than my old router WITH QoS did, by a large margin. And the auto-backup capability of the Time Capsule is just so nice. Recommended.

I am tempted to try it myself. I actually read a lot of derisive comments about how overpriced and underwhelming the Apple networking gear is from sites like smallnetbuilder, but I've also read that the Apple network products tend to be pretty rock solid, which isn't always the case with other SoHo class network products from D-Link, Netgear, Buffalo and others.

 

[dmk1974]

I have an Ooma device but I have zero desire to make it the primary interface from my cable modem to the rest of my network.

It is a bit mind boggling to me that Apple does not support this when even $50 budget routers offer it.

Oh well, if the wireless performance of the Airport Extreme router is really good I can always throw it in bridging mode and put it behind a more capable router.

Do you get garbled voice by having the Time Capsule between the cable modem and Ooma? I too wish TC has QoS.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

Is there some rationale for this?

The same reason why they use external configuration utilities, and all their products boot VxWorks or NetBSD. Either they simply don't care, or they don't have the talent, skill, or desire to hire folks who know how to produce a reasonable networking appliance.

I would recommend one of these as a replacement:

http://routerboard.com/RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN

Those units do an absurd amount of stuff for $129, QoS included. The hardware quality is extremely high and the software that they run (which is based on Linux) is amazing and extremely well supported by Mikrotik. I've been using these routers *everywhere* and haven't had a single problem with any one of them.

-SC