TP-Link repeater firmware squanders 715 MB/month

Last updated: 2017-12-13
 
You should probably avoid TP-Link products if you’re on a tight bandwidth budget. By design, TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds, for a total of 715,4 MB per month.
 
The firmware of some TP-Link repeaters — but not routers — including all 2017 models are very talkative on NTP, to a total of 715,4 MB per month. NTP is the network time protocol used to synchronize clocks across the web. To put this number in context: an always-on Windows device will use around 1,6 KB per month on NTP.
 
TP-Link’s firmware doesn’t have any sort of DNS caching, and they query DNS about 6 NTP server pool addresses every 5 seconds followed by an NTP request to one of them. An always-on Windows client sends 1 DNS and 1 NTP request once a week. (If you power cycle or suspend your device, it will send one additional request.)
 
This means your TP-Link product is using about 1,38 KB every 5 seconds — or 23,85 MBs per day — on timekeeping. For comparison, a 5-minute check would be considered a pretty aggressive checking interval, and would only consume 11,92 MB per month.
 
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