What is Bufferbloat and Why It's Ruining Your Zoom Calls

The Reason You Lag When Someone Watches Netflix

You run a speed test: 500 Mbps. Great. You jump into Valorant: 30ms ping. Great.
Then your roommate opens Netflix, and suddenly your ping spikes to 300ms. Why?

The Queue Problem

Bufferbloat happens when your router buffers too much data. It tries to be helpful by holding onto packets so none are lost, but for gaming, a delayed packet is worse than a lost packet. Your tiny "shoot" command gets stuck in line behind a giant chunk of 4K video.

The Fix: SQM (Smart Queue Management)

SQM is the only real cure. It intentionally slows down your max speed by about 5-10% to ensure the router's buffer never gets full. It keeps the "fast lane" open for small, time-sensitive packets like gaming and VoIP.

Routers like the Eero or anything running OpenWrt handle this beautifully (often called "Optimize for Conferencing and Gaming").