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Bufferbloat is the undesirable latency that comes from a router or other network equipment buffering too much data.
The Bufferbloat projects provide a webspace for addressing chaotic and laggy network performance. We have a number of projects in flight:
The Request to FCC for Saner Software Policies is a response to Docket ET 15-170 which appears to require vendors to lock down the software in Wi-Fi routers, prohibiting experimentation and field testing of new techniques. Read the Press Release and our Letter to the FCC
The Bufferbloat project has largely addressed latency associated with too much buffering in routers. The CoDel and fq_codel algorithms are the first fundamental advance in the state of the art of network Active Queue Management in many, many years. These algorithms have been deployed in millions of computers, and reduce the induced delay from competing traffic on a bottleneck link to the order of 20 msec.
The Make-Wi-Fi-Fast project, with many of the same team members as the Bufferbloat project, intends to improve Wi-Fi's speed and use of the spectrum by inserting CoDel/fq_codel into the Wi-Fi queues, and actively measuring the power required for successful transmission, in order to minimize contention and interference on the RF channel.
These are all united by a desire to:
- Gather together experts to tackle networking queue management and system problem(s), particularly those that effect wireless networks, home gateways, and edge routers
- Spread the word to correct basic assumptions regarding goodput and good buffering on the laptop, home gateway, core routers and servers.
- Produce tools to demonstrate and diagnose the problem
- Make experiments in advanced congestion management
- Produce patches to popular operating systems at the device driver, queuing, and TCP/ip layers to fix the problems.
There are several mailing lists, git repositories, and people here that are attempting to address the Bufferbloat and making Wi-Fi fast issues at various levels. We welcome you to join us in this endeavor!
Help Us
We're working to revive the Bufferbloat.net site, and things are well in hand. But if you'd like to help, please join us in contributing to the Wayback Machine at archive.org, whose archive made this placeholder site possible.
Ongoing projects
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Make Wi-Fi Fast Project
Billions now use wifi every day. Yet, as it has evolved, with more and more users sharing the same airspace, it has become ever more unreliable and difficult to use. There is some serious engineering work that can be done to make it better, and a need for more general knowledge on how to set it up right. More...
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CoDel and fq_codel
CoDel (pronounced "coddle", and standing for "Controlled Delay") is a new no-knobs Active Queue Management algorithm designed by Kathleen Nichols of Pollere and Van Jacobson . It addresses the bufferbloat problem in many forms of network gear, from routers to DSLAMs to servers to wireless More...
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Cake
Cake is an alternative qdisc to fq_codel. It is faster (requires less processor power, so can handle faster links), improves on codel, does ECN right, handles ATM framing and Diffserv well, and has many other improvements. More...
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Bloat
A place for people to work together on the bufferbloat problem, as we pull together both the scope of the problem and how to mitigate and solve bufferbloat. Mailing List Subscription...
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CeroWrt
The CeroWrt project was created as a research tool to resolve the endemic problems of bufferbloat in home networking today, and to push forward the state of the art of edge networks and routers. It has triumphed, and there is no further work being performed on the CeroWrt code base. The CeroWrt firmware's fq_codel implementation vanquishes bufferbloat and has been pushed into the OpenWrt mainline software. More...