Question Just got Fiber. Am I getting what I paid for, it seems pretty slow ?

[dorlow]

Ok, so we've had 4G internet for like a year. Finally got fiber about 2 months ago. I am being more liberal about my bandwidth usage. But, sometimes this fiber can feel pretty darn slow. I'm trying to figure out where my bottleneck is and also a good way to test if I'm really getting my 1 Gb/s I'm paying for.

So, with my setup, I have the fiber modem going directly into a Watchguard T20 Firewall. I'm using the watchguard as my home router. From there, I have it running into a gig switch that then runs to a Cisco 150AX access point and I have a whole bunch of the 151AXM range extenders around the house to get my wireless everywhere. The Access points and range extenders are Wifi 6.

Theoretically between the fiber modem, to the watchguard to the switch then to the acess points and range extenders, there shouldnt be a major bottle neck. It should all work at atleast a gigabit. Theoritecally the wifi6 should go faster. I know in reality probably not. But, we live way out in the middle of nowhere... hence why we just got fiber. I can't see a neighbors house and I sure don't see any SSIDs other than my own SSIDs inside or outside my house... so I don't have any wifi interference.

But, like right now, I was just backing up some files on my desktop computer that has a wifi6 usb nic. It was backing up like 300 GB of files so the upload was pegged. But, when I checked the resource manager, it showed my upload was using about 150 Mb/s. I am paying for 1 Gb/s down and 1 Gb/s up. As these files were uploading, browsing the web was terrible. I was having to refresh webpages multiple times to get them to load. It was like the 150 Mb/s was completely choking at least my uploads so my pc couldn't request a webpage to load.

I think before I call the ISP and question them getting me the 1 Gb/s I'm paying for, I first need to at least be 100% for sure. The best way to do that is to unplug the whole network from the modem and plug in one device and run a speed test. But, I need to make sure that the speed test is 100% legit. So, what would one recommend to run this speed test? I have a laptop that is OK specs. Think it has an i5 or i7 or something like that. But, it doesn't have a built in NIC. Most devices these days don't. So, I have a USB NIC. But, then the USB part gives me doubts about a 100% accurate speed test. My laptop I have is an HP x360 laptop. Otherwise, I have a desktop that is a pretty decent speed PC, but that sounds like a pain to unhook it and hook it all up next to the pc to just run the test. I was also thinking maybe about using a Raspberry Pi. That has a builtin nic... but wonder too how accurate and how fast a raspberry pi is.

 

[dorlow]

So, after typing this, I got to thinking, maybe I could run a speed test directly from the watchguard. I don't think I can. I was thinking it has a linux backend.... maybe it does. But, when I telnet to it, it has a firewall, cisco, type cli... I don't think there's any way to access any kind of linux/unix backend to the box that I could run a speed test from.

But, as I'm messing around in telnet, my uploads are still going. My typing into telnet is super delayed. So, right there tells me that the bottleneck is my home wifi or home internet.

I really don't have a good way to run a network cable from my PC to my firewall. they're on opposite sides of the house in a finished house. I mean I guess I could. But, I think it seems like more time and energy than I want to put into this solution. Our bedroom underneath it is a finished basement. Above it is the attic. I guess I could fish the wire up the walls because the modem is in the room a few rooms away upper floor too. Although I'd have to somehow get it across the vaulted ceiling.... Oh, and for some stupid reason, I think all of the interior walls in this house are insulated which makes fishing wires fun. (Already had to run an electrical wire in one interior wall and was suprised to find out it was insulated...)

 

[dorlow]

According to windows, it's showing my wifi is getting 573 Mb/s up and down Link Speed. So, that's what Windows is showing it thinks I should be able to get from my PC to the main access point. Not sure how that's calculated. But, that means it doesn't think it has a good enough signal for 1 Gb/s.... but still 100 Mb/s upload is a far cry from 573 Mb/s that it thinks I should be able to get.

 

[USAFRet]

According to windows, it's showing my wifi is getting 573 Mb/s up and down Link Speed. So, that's what Windows is showing it thinks I should be able to get from my PC to the main access point. Not sure how that's calculated. But, that means it doesn't think it has a good enough signal for 1 Gb/s.... but still 100 Mb/s upload is a far cry from 573 Mb/s that it thinks I should be able to get.

WiFi between your system and your router is much much different than ethernet between your system and your router.

The only real test you do is with a Cat5e cable from your PC to the router,
WiFi does not count.

 

[bill001g]

Having insulation in the interior walls along with reducing sound transmissions and heat it also does a good job of blocking wifi.

If you have coax cables in the remote room and near the router you could consider MoCa.

Running any kind of wifi extender will greatly reduce your speed. I see cisco has started to sell this garbage and these units are just as bad as the cheapest consumer models. The signals between your end devices and the main AP interfere with each other.
In addition you are now using 2 time the radio bandwidth.

In addition wifi6 is pretty much all marketing, almost nobody see much increase over wifi5(802.11ac). Your system like most only run 80mhz. Using 160mhz is that give wifi6 the speeds but it is hard to implement because of rules related to radar interference so many devices do not offer it. Most end devices also do not support 160mhz and you need both to get the speed.
The second feature of wifi6 is the use a qam1024. This very dense data encoding pretty much only works in the same room as the router.

In most cases you get about 300mbps or so on wifi6 at common usage distances but it will be much less if you use repeaters.

 

[dorlow]

so, then the question, how do you all recommend I test using cat 5e or 6? None of my PCs have a built in NIC. Is a speed test using a usb nic a good test? Well, I guess my desktop does, but that seems like a pain to move it to just test...

 

[kanewolf]

so, then the question, how do you all recommend I test using cat 5e or 6? None of my PCs have a built in NIC. Is a speed test using a usb nic a good test? Well, I guess my desktop does, but that seems like a pain to move it to just test...

Get a LONG ethernet cord. Run it across the floor for a test.

 

[dorlow]

So, I just remembered I bought one of these a while ago and it was just sitting in my closet.

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www.bee-link.com

Just hooked it up. It's running Windows 11 Pro.
2 GHz processor 4 core
8 GB RAM
256 GB m.2 SSD

It has a gig nic.

Just hooked it up at my modem. Now have my own little home server. Might come in handy. Set it up for a headless server with RDP access. But, ran an internet speed test and I got 234 Mb/s down and 383 Mb/s up. It is wired directly to the switch which then goes to the firebox and to the fiber modem. I haven't decided to bypass the firebox yet... But, according to the firebox, my home whole network utilization is minuscule at the moment... about 15 Mb/s down.

Ran the speed test using the speedtest.net Windows app from the Microsoft Windows app store.

 

[Gam3r01]

You need to test direct to the modem, no other hardware in between.

 

[dorlow]

So, just got done testing. So, my ISP is giving me the full 1 Gb/s up and down. Got like the high 900 Mb/s both ways when I ran the speed test with my PC as the only PC hooked to the modem. I then hooked up my firewall and connected my PC to the switch. Ran a speed test. Got 264.58 Mb/s down and 390 Mb/s up. I then disconnected from my network cable and connected to wifi and got 86 Mb/s down and 85.17 Mb/s up.

Hindsight I should've tried a test on the LAN side of the firewall without the switch hooked up. But, you know how it is when you turn off the internet at home... everyone doesn't know what to do with themselves. Think I put everyone in my family through enough pain and suffering for one day. Maybe I'll try that test another day.

 

[dorlow]

For the switch, I'm just using a cheap PoE Netgear switch. It is a gigabit switch. The link lights for all of the ports active are blinking green. According to the front of the switch, green means a gig link. I just checked the watchguard's status page. It's showing 1000 Mb/s full duplex for both the wan and lan port. But, because it is just a cheap switch, sometimes I wonder...

 

[dorlow]

Oh, and I bought some stuff to just wire my desktop PC to the switch directly. Just watched a youtube video of a guy doing it. Granted, I have fished wires through walls before. I've done it quite a bit. But, I've never got one down from the attic.... trying to drill the center of a wall from the attic. That made me kind of nervous. But, a few youtube videos and I think I have a pretty good idea how to find the wall when I'm up there now. I bought a fishing rod. Also have a cool tool called a magnipull... also discovered years ago these outlet boxes that you can clamp to drywall... so I more than have the stuff to do it... The wall is probably insulated... why would anyone ever insulate an interior wall? But, I ran an AC outlet in our bathroom and was surprised when I cut the wall open that the interior wall was insulated.

 

[bill001g]

Most times they insulate interior walls to stop sound. In some ways it could help if you wanted to close off a room and not heat it but I've been told doing that is bad for your heat/ac system.

It is a pain but as long as the insulation is not that expanding foam stuff you should be able to scrap the push rod against the dry wall so the wire does not run though the insulation bat.

I suspect it is a cpu load issue on your "firewall". This is not uncommon. Even very cheap consumer routers do the nat function with special asic hardware. Your device is using is likely using its main cpu. If you are actually running firewall rules it uses even more cpu. It is even worse if you are running a vpn. Not sure about your boxes but you need a fairly good sized pc to run gigabit connections. You might consider a consumer router to do the nat function with your firewall behind it. It depends why you feel you need a firewall. The simple nat function prevents any incoming attacks from the internet. It would only be if you needed to let traffic into a server or maybe if you were filtering outgoing traffic.

Even the cheapest modern consumers switches will never bottleneck a network. These are asic devices and can run every port at 1gbit up and 1gbit down all at the same time. So a 8 port switch could pass 16gbit of total traffic....not that there is a realistic use case that would ever need even close.

 

[kanewolf]

So, just got done testing. So, my ISP is giving me the full 1 Gb/s up and down. Got like the high 900 Mb/s both ways when I ran the speed test with my PC as the only PC hooked to the modem. I then hooked up my firewall and connected my PC to the switch. Ran a speed test. Got 264.58 Mb/s down and 390 Mb/s up. I then disconnected from my network cable and connected to wifi and got 86 Mb/s down and 85.17 Mb/s up.

Hindsight I should've tried a test on the LAN side of the firewall without the switch hooked up. But, you know how it is when you turn off the internet at home... everyone doesn't know what to do with themselves. Think I put everyone in my family through enough pain and suffering for one day. Maybe I'll try that test another day.

Have you read this article on optimization of the T20 for performance -- https://community.watchguard.com/wa...cussion/3091/optimize-t20-for-best-throughput
Also this post -- https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2464573-bandwidth-issues-watchguard-t20-w