Gigabit Service - Provisions and Optimizations?

[coldkick]

I was planning to get my gigabit service (PPPoE) installed today, but they need to install a new ONT in my home first, so it's been scheduled for next Tuesday. In the meantime I did some research and found that my router (RT-AC3200) doesn't have the best WAN-LAN throughput. So I have some questions to pose:

1) Should I enable HW Acceleration and Flow Acceleration at the cost of QoS and trend micro and would that bring the rated score of 725 up to the expected ~850Mbps with PPPoE?

2) Would I be better off building a mini ITX pfsense router to distribute the gigabit to my desktops and use my RT-AC3200 as an Access Point?

3) If the above is the better option, what would you say is a reasonable price for a miniITX router that is capable of GW in, and four GE out, with the fourth being used for the RT-AC3200 in AP mode.

I don't know if this helps, but the ONT is an Occam 2444, it seems like a clone of the Calix 722 GE.
Whole networking infrastructure is configured with CAT6 patch.

Thanks

 

[L&LD]

You're in a great position! I would wait for the install from your ISP to complete and then see where you are.

Each change you then make can be judged fairly and easily to see if it is an upgrade for your use case.

I suggest to keep a diary / log of your steps and current setup and any possible changes to fairly assess the benefits of doing one thing or the other. You will be the final judge of what is better (just like it should be) instead of just throwing effort, money or hardware at a problem you might not necessarily need to deal with today.

 

[netwrks]

You'll definitely need all the acceleration you can muster out of that router, to sustain close to gigabit speed. No QoS. Nothing that sucks resources. Moving to a pro-sumer router, that can sustain wire speed is probably a good idea.

 

[RMerlin]

You need something that handles NAT acceleration with PPPoE - not everything does.

 

[coldkick]

You need something that handles NAT acceleration with PPPoE - not everything does.

Hey Merlin! So is PPPoE still bugged, or is it inheritly flawed at the hardware level with the RT-AC3200?
Luckily, my service provider is a rural Co-operative so I may be able to talk them into dropping PPPoE for the gigabit plan. They already have for all business plans.

This is a little above budget, but would it work?
http://store.4netonline.com/product-p/erpro-8.htm

 

[Deepcuts]

I do not own an AC3200 but I had a N66U and now an AC68U.
N66U can handle 750-800 Mbps while AC68U can handle over 940 Mbps.
The connection is PPPoE.
I would think a newer model would be even better speed wise.
Are you sure your AC3200 cannot handle gigabit PPPoE speed?

PS: Don't go Ubiquti and regret. Choose Mikrotik

 

[coldkick]

I do not own an AC3200 but I had a N66U and now an AC68U.
N66U can handle 750-800 Mbps while AC68U can handle over 940 Mbps.
The connection is PPPoE.
I would think a newer model would be even better speed wise.
Are you sure your AC3200 cannot handle gigabit PPPoE speed?

PS: Don't go Ubiquti and regret. Choose Mikrotik

I guess I'll know on Tuesday!
I got the speeds from: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view
The speeds you are reporting are much high than reported on this chart so perhaps it will work out after all! I'm assuming thats with QoS and other layer 3 features off?

 

[System Error Message]

when using pfsense, avoid a system that has realtek ethernet ports. For a 1Gb/s throughput even a pentium 4 is fast enough.

For mikrotik theres a lot of choice such as the RB850gx2, RB1100AHx2, CCR1009. Their new firmware adds hardware NAT to routerboards but like ubiquiti hardware NAT on such devices especially for PPPOE is hopeless so the RB850gx2 can perform software NAT at the speeds you need.

If your download and upload is 1gb/s that means you need a router with a throughput of 2Gb/s. consumer routers only support near that speed with hardware NAT. With hardware NAT theres no custom QoS or firewall setting. Hardware NAT also uses a hard limit for number of connections before freezing. In software NAT the limit is the ram size.

If you choose mikrotik make sure to at least have their 1 month warranty where you can return it incase the RB850gx2 isnt fast enough and go with a much faster one. If you dont want fan noise than it may cost a premium to get their CCR1009-PC.

You can build your own pfsense hardware by getting any old PC and adding an intel dual port gigabit NIC at least. The NIC costs between $50 to $100 (the price of used intel NICs does go up due to demand for use with such systems) but some motherboards have good dual NICs which you can use.

 

[Deepcuts]

I guess I'll know on Tuesday!
I got the speeds from: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view
The speeds you are reporting are much high than reported on this chart so perhaps it will work out after all! I'm assuming thats with QoS and other layer 3 features off?

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here at SNB, but those charts are totally wrong, speed wise.
Just to name one, my latest Asus router (AC68U)
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4564227440
The upload is limited to ~ 200 Mbps (25 MBps) by the ISP.
Where on SNB, the WAN-LAN is 754 Mbps

 

[L&LD]

Just a guess, firmware differences?

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here at SNB, but those charts are totally wrong, speed wise.
Just to name one, my latest Asus router (AC68U)
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4564227440
The upload is limited to ~ 200 Mbps (25 MBps) by the ISP.
Where on SNB, the WAN-LAN is 754 Mbps

 

[coldkick]

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here at SNB, but those charts are totally wrong, speed wise.
Just to name one, my latest Asus router (AC68U)
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4564227440
The upload is limited to ~ 200 Mbps (25 MBps) by the ISP.
Where on SNB, the WAN-LAN is 754 Mbps

Just a guess, firmware differences?

Indeed, are you using the newest official ASUS, Merlin build, or an older firmware? This will be useful for testing. Thank you!

other thoughts: If the RT-AC3200 works perfectly, I have a switch to use in conjunction. Would you recommend I put a VoIP phone directly into the router, or would the QoS work fine behind the switch with the computers on the router? The switch would be shared with a printer, and some other small transfer devices.

 

[Deepcuts]

Firmware might make some small difference, but when I first tested my AC68U, it had the original Asus firmware, right from the box.
The speed was also above 900 Mbps download with PPPoE.
Now I am using Merlin's firmware 378.55.

Just to show you that speedtest.net is not BS, here is an FTP download test from my server, both locations using the same ISP.

 

[trodemaster]

I just got 1Gig/1Gig service and am looking for a suitable router as well. The service uses PPPoe and nat. While I was able to get netgear r8000 to work it was not full speed.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4536870454

How can I find a list of current routers that support NAT acceleration with PPPoE as mentioned?

 

[System Error Message]

I just got 1Gig/1Gig service and am looking for a suitable router as well. The service uses PPPoe and nat. While I was able to get netgear r8000 to work it was not full speed.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4536870454

How can I find a list of current routers that support NAT acceleration with PPPoE as mentioned?

looks like you didnt have hardware acceleration.

The issue with speed test is that it only tests 1 way at the same time. You need a bidirectional test. You can go with my suggestion though as i am sure the RB850gx2 can handle gigabit speeds but the RB1100AHx2 can handle gigabit on both ways at the same time.

 

[netwrks]

Try DSL speedtest. It's more indepth testing.

http://www.dslreports.com/

 

[coldkick]

I have my setup for now Looks like CTF and FA can both be on with a hardware firewall. Tweaking begins tomorrow. Does anyone know if overclocking the CPU would help? I have the router in a very cool place and CPU is sitting at around 60C

Try DSL speedtest. It's more indepth testing.

http://www.dslreports.com/

I agree, the DSLReports tool suite is much better than Ookla

EDIT: Just had an interesting thought.... what if I set the max MTU to 1508 and the MRU to 1500, and forced a pppd option to the ISP server to allow it as a baby jumbo frame... I'll have to ask about it tomorrow