reduced internet speed

[Ray_21]

Apologies for the long intro but think its necessary.

My house is in an area that did not have any land lines so for the past 6 years or so our only internet connection was via WIMAX. Speeds were generally poor so reluctantly we arranged our lives to fit that fact.

Now we have a high speed fibre optic internet connection provided by movistar. It is fibre to the home. The ONT (HUAWEI HG8240H) is located in the utility alongside all of my cat5 cabling terminations (feeds to different areas of the house). The Huawei has a 4 port LAN but only port 1 is enabled and the 3 others are protected. Movistar also supplied the Amper-EG-663 router.

I have attached an image to show the configuration that I have today. It basically mimics the configuration that we had with WIMAX. In that configuration now see download speeds of 307 Mbs and upload speeds of 22Mbs on my PC's in the office when connected via Ethernet (http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/.) I am happy with that and want to maintain those Ethernet speeds.

Having got a much better provider I wanted to extent my wifi to other areas of the house (outside terrace and upstairs) whilst maintaining the high speed Ethernet within the office. My wifi needs are very limited (phones, tablets, wife's I Pad) so ultra fast wifi capabilities are of no great concern. As I said, its the excellent Ethernet speeds in the office that I want to keep.

Following a little research on the net (I am a complete novice in this field) I discovered that I could get the extra wifi coverage that I wanted by using two old routers in a cascade mode. The routers are a TP-Link WR841ND and a Trendnet TEW-658BRM. After a lot of learning and playing I eventually managed to get them both working perfectly.

So, the plan was to move the Amper-EG-663 router into the utility room (alongside the ONT) where it could feed the existing cat5 cabling and use my two old routers elsewhere in the house. Obviously, one of the old routers would be in the office. I decided to test this plan before making any permanent changes. For the test I disconnected my PC LAN cable from the Amper-EG-663. Connected that cable to the TP-Link WR841ND (LAN to LAN) and then connected a new LAN cable between the TP-Link WR841ND and my PC. Problem is, when I do that the internet download speed drops to 32Mbs (upload remains about the same at 22Mbs. Got very similar poor results with the Trendnet TEW-658BRM.

So my plan appears to be flawed. I guess my problem could be that the TEW-658BRM is simply not capable of handling these speeds. Apparently it has 4 x 10/100 Mbps Auto-MDIX LAN ports and its spec says its an N router so I assumed it should be capable of at least 150 Mbps. Same goes for the Trendnet - just not capable?
After a little more research I found that this is a common problem with cascaded routers. ah heck. So I do not think that there are any further settings that I can make within the old routers that would address this problem - or are there?

But I also discovered gigabit Ethernet switching which, if I understand correctly, would overcome my problems, or maybe just help a little? Not sure which. In my ignorance I also assumed that a LAN to LAN connection via routers would be no different from LAN to LAN via a switch - or do switches also reduce LAN - LAN speeds? So I do not really understand enough about this technology to move forward and therein lies my new dilemma and question(s).

But I have come up with a plan B as shown in the attached " Proposed switched configuration.jpg". Thing is, would this actually achieve what I want - maintain wired download speeds for my office PC's? And what switch(s). If this is the answer then would something like a TRENDnet TEG-S50g GREENnet Switch do the job. Or do I need something more sophisticated/capable along the lines of a fully manageable switch?

Your help and advice would be very much appreciated.

 

[hang-the-9]

Everything is connected with ethernet cables? Did you configure the second router for the correct function by turning off DHCP in it? If everything is connected with a cable, you can just use a regular switch instead of the router to extend the connections, that should make things easier to configure, and even a new 1 gig switch is very cheap.

 

[Ray_21]

Everything is connected with ethernet cables? Did you configure the second router for the correct function by turning off DHCP in it? If everything is connected with a cable, you can just use a regular switch instead of the router to extend the connections, that should make things easier to configure, and even a new 1 gig switch is very cheap.

Hi, yes the two old routers are configured OK and function when cascaded. All three routers are working OK for wifi and ethernet to my two PC's. The only issue that I have is that my measured internet download speeds. When my two PC's are connected via ethernet with any of the two old routers the speed drops significantly as I explained in my original post. So assume its the LAN ports on the old routers - they are just not capable of the speeds I get when I hook up by 2 PC's. But I do not know if that assumption is correct or not.

I also do not know if 1 gig switches will slow down my internet download speeds.

What I really need to know (from someone with greater knowledge/experience than me) is will the suggested switching configuration in my attached .jpg work or not and would it reduce internet download speeds to my PC's when they are connected via ethernet to the second switch.

 

[hang-the-9]

Really the connection you setup should not affect download speeds, especially when connected to ethernet. And unless you are linking the routers using WiFi to extend them and not ethernet, the connections between them would be as fast as directly to a modem. Should be that is, if it's not, there is some issue there. I suggest trying a regular switch instead of a router to extend the range. Also keep in mind that Ethernet has a limit of about 300 feet for a single run, and there may be interference somewhere else. I've seen poor wiring or a bad port cause odd speed issues, like one computer having a 10 meg connection on a 1 gig switch.

 

[Ray_21]

Really the connection you setup should not affect download speeds, especially when connected to ethernet. And unless you are linking the routers using WiFi to extend them and not ethernet, the connections between them would be as fast as directly to a modem. Should be that is, if it's not, there is some issue there. I suggest trying a regular switch instead of a router to extend the range. Also keep in mind that Ethernet has a limit of about 300 feet for a single run, and there may be interference somewhere else. I've seen poor wiring or a bad port cause odd speed issues, like one computer having a 10 meg connection on a 1 gig switch.

Thanks for the info. My existing connection setup is via ethernet only. The only conclusion (with my very limited knowledge/expertise) is that the LAN connections of my old routers are slowing things down. They are not gigabit rated but the speed reduction I have is a big surprise too me. I assumed LAN to LAN would pass straight through. Obviously not. And a drop from 307 Mbs to 32Mbs is crazy.

I suppose the only way to go from here is to get one gigabit switch as a trial and see what happens. If its OK then go ahead and get a second switch to complete the new setup that I proposed.

Question: I understand the difference between managed and unmanaged switches but ignoring that for the moment are most switches equal in terms of performance?

 

[hang-the-9]

You don't need a managed one, yes most switches are equal. Price does get you better build quality and more ports, but unless you get the cheapest generic china made thing, any of the good brands will be equal.

Managed switches are really only good for advanced setups when you want to isolate network traffic or setup some other custom network setup, for home use, a non-managed switch is best due to cost and simplicity.

 

[Ray_21]

You don't need a managed one, yes most switches are equal. Price does get you better build quality and more ports, but unless you get the cheapest generic china made thing, any of the good brands will be equal.

Managed switches are really only good for advanced setups when you want to isolate network traffic or setup some other custom network setup, for home use, a non-managed switch is best due to cost and simplicity.

Thanks. I will do a little more research on brands/spec/cost and get one to give it a go. It's the only way I will know for sure. If successful, will then maybe think about taking a look at more advanced wifi access points.

Thanks for you help.