RT-AC88U - Getting best download speed on 1.5 gigabit connection

[sharkus]

hello all,
Here’s some setup details:
I have 1500 / 940 FTTH connection from Bell
I’m bypassing their HomeHub 3000 modem. The GPON is in a tp-link media converter, which is connected by a short cat5e to my rt-ac88u

I’m running the latest, non-beta version of Merlin on it.

It is initiating a PPPoE connection.

I have all the Qos items turned off

CTF is set to “auto”

Im using a 2014 iMac retina, wired Ethernet, with cat5e into LAN1 on the 88u.
Exact specs of iMac are:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
3TD Fusion drive

I know I won’t see 1500 down, so I’m not expecting that, but I would like to think I could get a reliable 900 - 930 down.

As you can probably guess, I’m not seeing that. 810 seems to be the max down I have seen, typically it’s between 680 and 760.

You know what is coming next

Any ideas as to what, if anything, I can tweak in the modem settings to get a higher download speed?

One presumes the 88 can handle a gigabit connection?

Thanks for any help

 

[DonnyJohnny]

It also depend on your client cpu and disk speed as you are using them to test the speed.
Best to rest if you are at least i7 with SSD.
I on 1gbps plan.
I can reach 800-900mbps download and 1000-1100mbps upload

 

[Jack23]

Be aware that even though it’s 1.5 g that the ONT is still GPON which is 2.6g shared among 32 others

You are at the mercy of your 31 neighbours

Plus their backhaul is still 10G at the OLT

Rogers/etc are no better but manage your expectations

 

[sharkus]

It also depend on your client cpu and disk speed as you are using them to test the speed.
Best to rest if you are at least i7 with SSD.
I on 1gbps plan.
I can reach 800-900mbps download and 1000-1100mbps upload

Client is:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
3TD Fusion drive

 

[sharkus]

Be aware that even though it’s 1.5 g that the ONT is still GPON which is 2.6g shared among 32 others

You are at the mercy of your 31 neighbours

Plus their backhaul is still 10G at the OLT

Rogers/etc are no better but manage your expectations

I was wondering about that, as it's a new build area, and it's all FTTH (Bell or Cogeco), so anyone wanting Fibe internet, tv, and I presume phone, would be on the FTTH system.

 

[DonnyJohnny]

Client is:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
3TD Fusion drive

Have you tried plugging directly to the modem and do a speed test?

 

[sharkus]

Have you tried plugging directly to the modem and do a speed test?

Do you mean the Asus, or putting the HomeHub 3000 back in place? If it's the former then the iMac is connected to LAN1 on the asus. If it's the latter, I'll give it another shot. I have tried it, but for the life of me cannot recall the results.

 

[DonnyJohnny]

Do you mean the Asus, or putting the HomeHub 3000 back in place? If it's the former then the iMac is connected to LAN1 on the asus. If it's the latter, I'll give it another shot. I have tried it, but for the life of me cannot recall the results.

Just thinking if the firmware of asus is giving u problem. So using back homehub 3000 for a test to see if speed is good.

The other thing you can do is reflash merlin firmware and reinitialise and re-configure your setting.
Coz there might have some corruption somewhere here and there.
I did my reinitialisation just few days again due to internet speed issue too.
My thread here
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/sharing-slow-download-speed-when-wifi-is-enabled-solved.49173/

 

[sharkus]

Just thinking if the firmware of asus is giving u problem. So using back homehub 3000 for a test to see if speed is good.

The other thing you can do is reflash merlin firmware and reinitialise and re-configure your setting.
Coz there might have some corruption somewhere here and there.
I did my reinitialisation just few days again due to internet speed issue too.
My thread here
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/sharing-slow-download-speed-when-wifi-is-enabled-solved.49173/

Thanks. I get where you're coming from in regards to the HH3K, and I will give it a shot and see what speeds

I'll have a read of your thread and give the re-flash a try too.

 

[Spydawg]

I'm on the 1000 down with bell..
i get 950 down 1000 up on tests.
I set the bells home hub 3000 DMZ to my asus router and ticked the advanced option to enable it to be in bridge mode.

Never thought of removing it and just using the asus 3100 router.

Did you just pull that fiber GPON tp-link media converter from Bells home hub 3000 and plug it into your router?

 

[Spydawg]

Quick test with dslreports just now with kids and wife on other systems so it's alittle slower then I get with nothing going on the home network..

 

[sharkus]

I'm on the 1000 down with bell..
i get 950 down 1000 up on tests.
I set the bells home hub 3000 DMZ to my asus router and ticked the advanced option to enable it to be in bridge mode.

Never thought of removing it and just using the asus 3100 router.

Did you just pull that fiber GPON tp-link media converter from Bells home hub 3000 and plug it into your router?

The GPON went into the tp-link, which has a short cat5e into WAN of my asus, so the HH3K is out of the equation.

 

[mafiaboy01]

The GPON went into the tp-link, which has a short cat5e into WAN of my asus, so the HH3K is out of the equation.

I have a similar setup with. I have Bell 940/940 using the TP-Link media converter connected to my ac87.

During peak times I can drop down to 7xx-8xxMbps speeds. It could be you're on a split with alot of heavy users.

Are your speeds always that low or only during certain times?

 

[sharkus]

I have a similar setup with. I have Bell 940/940 using the TP-Link media converter connected to my ac87.

During peak times I can drop down to 7xx-8xxMbps speeds. It could be you're on a split with alot of heavy users.

Are your speeds always that low or only during certain times?

Ran a quick test just now 640 down, 933 up (the upload does generally hang around that area). I think you're right, it could be I'm on a congested splitter, or it's just overall congestion due to the area being FTTH.

 

[mafiaboy01]

Ran a quick test just now 640 down, 933 up (the upload does generally hang around that area). I think you're right, it could be I'm on a congested splitter, or it's just overall congestion due to the area being FTTH.

I would recommend posting on DSLReport in the Bell Direct forum. They're really good there and will probably send a tech out to move you to another splitter that's less busy.

 

[sharkus]

I would recommend posting on DSLReport in the Bell Direct forum. They're really good there and will probably send a tech out to move you to another splitter that's less busy.

I had previously been speaking to Matt in the direct forum, he’d switched profile for me and that seemed ok until recently. He too had mentioned another option was moving to another splitter. I’d held off as all seemed ok, plus wanted to check it wasn’t weird stuff on my end.

 

[sharkus]

Thanks to everyone for their comments I've got a ticket logged for a call out to see if I can be moved to another less congested splitter. If so, I'll see how things are and report back.

 

[du322]

Thanks to everyone for their comments I've got a ticket logged for a call out to see if I can be moved to another less congested splitter. If so, I'll see how things are and report back.

Did you manage to get this resolved? I'm facing the same situation with the same setup.

 

[sharkus]

Did you manage to get this resolved? I'm facing the same situation with the same setup.

Hi,
Very lax of me not to update the thread!
I had a tech come out and check things, there wasn't another splitter to put me on, so not much they could do on their end, and when using the HH3K the speed was pretty good. I left things for a while, and decided to pop the SFP ONT back into the HH3K and try using PPPoE passthrough from the ASUS. This did result in a speed increase, but I'd had issues with some iOS devices not being able to connect to various websites. That turned out to be an MTU issue. I'd had the ASUS set to 1500 when it was fully bypassing things, and it seems that 1492 is the highest MTU you can use when using passthrough. Since changing it I've still got the better download speeds, and the iOS devices are behaving.

The speed? I'm typically seeing 860 - 902 down, and 900 up from my iMac, which I think is pretty good, and certainly a lot better than what I'd previously seen.

As for real world testing of speeds, a few people had suggested using a download from Google Drive, which I've seen good results from. I might, if I have time, switch back to my original setup and see what speeds the google drive download gives

 

[du322]

Thanks for the quick reply and update. I ran into the same MTU issue a while back when experimenting and also settled back on 1492. I haven't tried the Google drive approach to testing the speed yet but one thing I have noticed is that my speed is pretty good using the speedtest.net app and Bell's server but when I switch servers or use other tests it tanks. Those same other tests/servers with the Home Hub attached and handling the VLAN tagging all produced consistent up and down speeds of 930mb/s.

One theory I've come across is that the TP-Link converter can't handle the Bell line provisioned above 1gb and this results in lost packets. I'm actually on the 1gb service but they had to "tweak" it to the point where my Home Hub was showing 1.4gb coming in from the line just to get full gigabit speeed even from the Home Hub. Seems removing the HH in these circumstances and replacing it with the media converter doesn't translate into the same speed the way it seems to when the line is set to a slower speed (i.e. less than 1gb). I've tried using two different smart switches in place of the TP-link as well as another media converter but all result in the same downgraded download speeds compared to when the HH is in place and handling the vlan.