LibreQoS greatly improves the quality of experience of internet connections. It was born out of necessity during the COVID pandemic when massively increased internet usage resulted in intermittent package loss. Robert Chacón, CEO of LibreQoS and operator of a small ISP that provides internet to under-served communities, noticed how it affected his customers’ ability to work from home and do online learning. In response, LibreQoS was created to fight bufferbloat and latency issues by prioritizing interactive sessions like video calls over, say, downloading large files.

In this episode we speak to Robert, Herbert Wolverson (Chief Product Officer), and Frantisek Borsik (Chief Operating Officer). They talk about how they open sourced LibreQoS in the hopes of helping other small ISPs who bring internet to the under-served, and their surprise at the rapid rise in popularity with deployments in 58 countries. They provide insight in the world of ISPs, and how stable internet connections aren’t just about good gaming experiences but can actually save lives.

In loving memory of Dave Täht
Sadly, Dave Täht passed away days after the recording of this episode. Dave was Chief Science Officer at LibreQoS and made fundamental contributions to FQ-CoDel, CAKE, and LibreQoS to improve the internet for everyone. He worked to make real-time communication available everywhere and insisted his code be free and open source so it would truly benefit everyone. He is remembered by many for who he was and the lives he touched with his work on his memorial page.

Links
LibreQoS
LibreQoS website
LibreQoS source code
LibreQoS documentation

NGI Zero projects
LibreQoS
LibreQoS 2.1

Learn more about LibreQoS:
Great explanation of how LibreQoS works by Herbert Wolverson at an APNIC webinar.
Interview with Robert Chacón including a demo of LibreQoS’s dashboard by The BrothersWISP at WISPAPALOOZA 2024.

Other projects and topics mentioned
CTN an ISP in Malawi
OpenWRT a Linux distribution for routers and embedded devices.
FQ-CoDel: a hybrid packet scheduler and Active Queue Management algorithm.
Cake a comprehensive queue management system the bufferbloat project has been working on since 2013.
MikroTik
Alta Labs
Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
Karlstad University

Equitable Internet Access for the Under-served - LibreQoS