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[Bowdon]

I was searching around youtube and went down a rabbit hole and appeared at an interesting video about VM 1GB service. I'll include the video in question in this post here;

Upgrading to Gigabit Internet - Virgin Media Gig1
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT9b7VU8nHc[/youtube]

The woman in the video is making the point that the advertised sale speed is 1,104Mbps. She is using the new hub 4. She's commenting that the hub is restricted to using 1Gbps ethernet ports so you never get the advertised speed through one port. She used a couple of different speed test sites that came in at 944Mbps, and 947Mbps. She then used the samknows real speed test - which tests the incoming speed at the modem and it comes in at around the advertised speed of the service at 1,124Mbps.

I thought it was an interesting video as I'd never thought about the limitations of ethernet ports on routers before. I guess we're entering a new speed age and technology is slow to catch up.

I'm assuming there are ethernet ports that are above 1Gbps? I wonder how long until they start being put on to routers.

[meritez]

Options:

CAT6A or CAT7 Ethernet ports and cables:


Though I have not seen any cat6a or cat7 routers apart from enterprise.

If it was me, I would change my local network to SFP+: https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in

[sevenlayermuddle]

I’ve not watched the video as it looks rather long and I have a limited attention span.

But what exactly is the problem...  In a world where broadband delivery speeds were sufficient to meet and exceed all anticipated requirements, why would it matter if a single port on the router were unable to saturate the broadband connection?

[highpriest]

I'm assuming there are ethernet ports that are above 1Gbps? I wonder how long until they start being put on to routers.

ISPs like Salt in Switzerland that offer a 10 Gbps service offer a single 10 gigabit ethernet port (and 4 gigabit ethernet ports) on their router.

https://fiber.salt.ch/en/fiber/equipment/fiber-box

Problem is that most homes will not have 10 gig capable equipment. For VM customers, the only way to exceed 1 gig would be through a wireless connection which can achieve (theoretically at least) around 2 Gbps (both bands combined).

[Bowdon]

But what exactly is the problem...  In a world where broadband delivery speeds were sufficient to meet and exceed all anticipated requirements, why would it matter if a single port on the router were unable to saturate the broadband connection?

It's not a big problem, just a small issue.

That if someone takes out VM 1GB service, you're not able to experience the maximum connection to your PC as the ethernet ports on the router are restricting the throughput.

Of course if you're using multiple ethernet connected devices then you will get the full overall speed as the 2nd port can use the speed the first port is restricting. So in the real world its not an issue. I just find it interesting that for VM's fibre device they didn't think to upgrade the ethernet ports, as I assume eventually we'll be getting over 1GB connections in future so the device could have been future proof. Now they will have to release a hub 5 when that happens.

[sevenlayermuddle]

A single PC can have more than one ethernet connection, so that’s not a limit.

Throwing in a genuine question....   is there any current purpose for which a single typical home PC might be deployed, that would benefit from internet access speeds anywhere near 1Gbps?

By typical, I am excluding tech whiz kids that want to set up their own web services, etc. 

[niemand]

Oh yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Gigabit_Ethernet#10GBASE-T

Verizon and Comcast in the United States are both soon to release 2.5 Gb port routers. Comcast have some DoCSIS 3.1 modems that they've just updated to use LACP to bond 2 x 1 GbE ports.

The driver for the intermediate ports was that wireless has left wired behind in speed so intermediates running on the same cabling were needed to backhaul access points.

For VM's Gig1 device the explanation is simple - they are using the same router that was trialed by other members of the Liberty Global family for the initial 1 Gb services in Germany and Poland where it's okay to advertise services running over a gigabit port as being gigabit.

As far as current purposes go it's much the same as most other 'vanity tier' speeds - move data faster. The benefit is there and legitimate, especially given digital distribution of content such as games rocking in at >100 GB, but there are no applications that require such speeds.

T'was ever so really.

[Ronski]

There's always going to be a bottle neck somewhere, say you had 10Gbps network and broadband, now say you could download a file at that speed, most people's hard drive would then become the bottle neck once the cache was full.

1Gbps up and down would be nice, but only really for file backup / restore to my NAS at my brothers, can't really think of any other use I'd have.

[PhilipD]

Hi

It also means less of a slow down.  As they are selling these services then other bottlenecks are removed and capacity is upped, they will never guarantee 1G at all times on these types of services of course, but neither could they get away with speeds dropping as low as 50 or 100Meg at peak times on a 1Gig product, so they will work to sustain a much higher minimum at peak times. 

Regards

Phil

[dee.jay]

Even if the router supported LACP that would allow you to connect multiple NICs together - you would still be restricted by the 1Gbps port.

I do think it daft that they are selling a 1,104Mbps service and then only provide a device capable of 1Gbps max per port. Whilst yes, you could connect a PC with two cables, you would only ever get 1Gbps in a single "stream" of data.

Mikrotik can provide 4 x 10Gbps SFP interfaces for ~ £135 - so I don't think it is unreasonable to start seeing 10Gbps (or even 2.5/5Gbps as CarlT pointed out) on devices nowadays.

[Weaver]

Agree with CarlT.

If you used LACP I don’t see why you shouldn’t get more data through even in a just one single TCP connection. Or you could use multigig, as mentioned by earlier posters, with 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps per link.

Some Cisco WAPs can do multigig - mere WAPs, not even routers. And some have two ethernet cables to do 2 * 1 Gbps.

I get multiple throughput shuch better than 90% * n in a single TCP connection, better than 95% if you take off the TCP and IP headers in speed testers’ figures to get the relevant IP PDU bandwidth.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'd think most households will be using a mixture of wired and wireless concurrently, so may get "some" benefit from greater than Gigabit.

Other households will use ONLY WiFi and wonder why their speed hasn't improved at all from what they had before.  Thus is the nature of people not understanding technology.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I am still of the opinion that to make any good use of Internet access speeds beyond a few hundred Mbps, the vast majority of homes would need to be sharing it among multiple devices, PCs, TVs, IoT things, etc.

With fibre, I think Internet access will come to be seen as just a utility, we will simply expect it to be fast enough to do all we need of it, without worrying about the numbers.  Arguably, we have already got to the point where 1Gbps is not enough for a large family streaming UHD TV to multiple rooms, so 10Gbps is a sensible reserve, but there is no need for individual devices to use 10Gbps just because it’s  there.

By comparison with other utilities, a typical 230V mains electricity supply might have an incoming fuse rated at 100A, or 23kW.  That allows an appropriate combination of high power appliances of a few kW each, kettles, toasters, power showers, ovens, to all work reliably.    It does not mean the householder can expect to operate a 23kW bulb in a single light fitting.

[niemand]

LACP can't help for a single flow, Weaver. Depending on the kit and configuration the decision which link in the LAG is used is made via headers at layer 2, 3 or 4.

I pointed to it as a step in the right direction, not an endgame solution.

EDIT: Given the audience, Mr Weaver  I should elaborate.

LACP is Link Aggregation Control Protocol. It does what it says on the tin and works at layer 2. However, the kit implementing it isn't usually aware past at most layer 4, and decides which link to use by hashing the layer 2, 3 or 4 header.

To balance between 2 links on the same flow you have to either be somewhat more clever or be indiscriminate and spray traffic across both links evenly, which requires the kit on the other side to be doing the same - can't make that assumption.

Where carriers require multipath in this manner they use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-cost_multi-path_routing and layer 3 interfaces, not layer 2.

As you can see from the links there there are some.... complexities that you don't really want to be inflicting on switches.

EDIT 2: My own Virgin Media service uses this. I terminate on a layer 3 device, a CMTS, which in turn has ECMP to its uplinks - here are 4 x 10 G to one of them - it can happily take 8 x 10 G to each of 2 uplinks:

214.50.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = lee2-cmts-13-tenge510.network.virginmedia.net <> 213.50.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = leed-core-2b-xe-802-0.network.virginmedia.net

218.50.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = lee2-cmts-13-tenge511.network.virginmedia.net <> 217.50.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = leed-core-2b-xe-803-0.network.virginmedia.net

222.50.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = lee2-cmts-13-tenge512.network.virginmedia.net <> 221.50.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = leed-core-2b-xe-804-0.network.virginmedia.net

46.241.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = lee2-cmts-13-tenge513.network.virginmedia.net <> 45.241.0.80.in-addr.arpa   name = leed-core-2b-xe-805-0.network.virginmedia.net

[niemand]

Arguably, we have already got to the point where 1Gbps is not enough for a large family streaming UHD TV to multiple rooms, so 10Gbps is a sensible reserve, but there is no need for individual devices to use 10Gbps just because it’s  there.

That would be a big family indeed with an awful lot of UHD televisions. Their wireless would buckle like a sheet of tinfoil.

As would the operator's network.

Long way to go before that usage case becomes normal or tolerable. I'm aware of the odd person that prides themselves on consuming bandwidth though.

Our other utilities are all metered. Unless the same happens with bandwidth it's a tricky sell.