Any way to make a slow ADSL connection a little more tolerable with QOS?

[#1]

I live in a rural area that the highest tier internet I can get is 1.5mbit/256k upload. Yes, it still exists, it's a small town ISP that hasn't upgraded their copper wire and probably never will.

I've messed around with QOS before, but would it even make a difference with this low of a bandwidth ceiling? The only thing I want to mitigate is random lag spikes in my online gaming. I spike randomly even whenever there is only one device, most noticeable in Fortnite. (avg 80-90 ping until spike up into 500ms)

Is this bufferbloat kicking in here? I spike at least 4-5 times a game. The Bufferbloat Test at DSLReports gives me a D or F.

I'm currently running AdvancedTomato with a seperate Wireless-AP I physically shut off whenever I need the bandwidth, but would QOS even make a difference here? I've read about fq_codel but i'm not sure it would even work with this low of a ceiling.

Should I rip up the copper wire myself and lobby my small town ISP to get into the 21st century? Do I need to just ditch this connection and start looking at Hotspots? I don't use much data, I have a lot of saved content, it's just the latency I worry about.

Any suggestions are welcome, i'm open to whatever I can do to just help the Quality of Life with this terrible internet. If I have to build a PFSENSE box, so be it!

[#2]

Hi,

A warm welcome to the forums.

You sound quite tech savvy, so would it be fair to assume that you have checked through all of the usual stuff to ensure that you are getting the very best possible on what sounds like a fairly remote rural location?

1. Is the router plugged into the master socket?
2. Are there any phone extension wires?
3. Is there any noise on the phone line?
4. Have you checked the line attenuation figure against something like Kitz ADSL max speed checker?
5. What is your sync speed?
6. What are your US / DS SNRM figures?
7. What services does SAMKNOWS say are available for your location? See https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
8. Have you done all of the ADSL speed issues checks?  See the link below.

[#3]

Having ditched ADSL myself (and mine was better than yours - I could get 700k up), I'd recommend looking at 4G. The latency can be a little higher, but with greater upload speed it doesn't cause the big spikes that you get with a very limited upload speed.