UDP Speed???

[Pinefang]

Hi all, first time post. So what got me to your forum is a problem that I am having with my Ring security cameras and doorbell. The Ring software freezes and the video does not always play it sits with the timer just spinning. I have contacted Ring about this issue and they say that My UDP speed is too slow. it is 0.3756 mbps and it needs to be a minimum of 2.0 mbps. I am no internet expert and am unaware of what they are talking about. I am suppose to call my ISP Frontier and see if they will up my UDP speed. I would like to have a little knowledge about this issue before I call them and start talking about a subject that I know little about. My internet speed is 49.11 download and 75.94 upload with a 10ms ping in case that has anything to do with UDP. Can anyone help me with a little knowledge about this issue before Monday when I call Frontier.

[Sean]

UDP is a simple connectionless protocol, where data is sent without the overhead of setting up and maintaining a connection.  It's effectively the electronic equivalent of mailing packages without any tracking or return address.  There is no guarantee they will reach the destination. 

 

Unlike TCP, there is no simple way to run a UDP speed test.  If UDP data is sent faster than what the connection can handle, UDP packets will be lost. With a UDP based video connection, this will result in dropped or garbled frames or no picture at all if there's not enough data in each frame to decode it.

 

If you are comfortable with using the command prompt, you can try running an iperf3 based test over UDP.  With this utility, you specify the test server and the bandwidth to test with.  The test will then show the resulting bandwidth and how many datagrams were lost, e.g. due to insufficient bandwidth.  A small loss of 1-2% is fine, but if it's over 2% then there is either not enough bandwidth or another issue such as a router dropping packets.  With TCP, a small packet loss generally goes unnoticed as TCP will automatically retransmit dropped packets. 

 

You can download iperf3 from here.  Some test servers are listed here, although from my experience only a small few work with the UDP test. 

 

To run a 2Mbps UDP test with it, type: iperf3 -c (server name) -p (port) -u -b 2M

 

The following is an example from my end, running against the iperf.volia.net server:

 

[Pinefang]

Thank you Sean for the reply. As I thought all of this is way above my head. I did speak with my ISP today and they told me that UDP had less to do with speed (as I believe you are saying) and more to do with open ports on my router. He found the UDP port requirements for my Ring system and opened those ports for me in my router. The jury is still out as to if it is helping my problem. Anyway I want to thank you for taking the time to respond to my question even though I couldn't do a lot with the information due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. Thanks again.