Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mungler]

Hi,

We moved to a new property last summer and after hooking up my kit, was disappointed to see we were getting roughly 20-22Mbps download and 8-9Mbps or so upload in speed tests.

I've been on a bit of a journey trying to increase our speed, including getting Openreach out, replacing the master socket, moving the router down to it (previously it seems to have been on an extension).

Long story short, i'm now at the point where i've got an eero 6 (non-Pro) acting as router (using their new PPPoE capability) hooked up to an unlocked Openreach HG612 3B in default configuration (i.e. dumb modem mode).

Its working pretty well, and i'm seeing speeds (measured by the eero gateway) of 51Mbps download and 16Mbps upload, which is overall pretty good.

I believe i'm on a Huawei cabinet, and afaik that means a broadcom chipset, well-matched to the HG612.

I can post line stats etc as needed (its a little bit of a pain, as the modem is downstairs and router is upstairs, so i need to run a huge long cable to get to the HG612's LAN2 port).

I captured the below the other day.  I've seen sync speeds of around 60Mbps before, with the Plusnet Hub One router, im just wondering if 51Mbps download is the best I can expect to see, or if its possible the line will improve over time. The modem has an uptime of around 9 days at this point.

Any guidance appreciated! I can look into buying a different modem if it would be better. Oh, I also have a Netgear DM200 I could try out too.

Code: [Select]

# xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 18619 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60308 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 18619 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57537 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3959)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3959)
  VDSL Port Details   Upstream   Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate:     18619 kbps     60308 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power:        7.5 dBm      12.8 dBm
====================================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
  Line Attenuation(dB): 7.4 30.3 44.3   N/A   N/A 14.4 36.0 55.6
Signal Attenuation(dB): 7.4 29.7 43.5   N/A   N/A 20.9 35.7 55.6
SNR Margin(dB): 6.2 6.4 6.4   N/A   N/A 4.3 4.3 4.3
TX Power(dBm): 0.3 -13.1 6.5   N/A   N/A 9.1 8.1 6.6
#


[j0hn]

xdslcmd info --pbParams gives very little info.
If possible can you run the xdslcmd info --stats command and post the results.

[Weaver]

Welcome to the forum. Many of us use ZyXEL modems. I use a VMG1312-B10A, not to be confused with the -B10D which is slightly inferior in some situations but would be fine for your usage. The downside with my VMG 1312-B10A modem is that it is only available secondhand now but examples do pop up on eBay. The ZyXEL VMG 89xx models are very good too. I don’t know if they are available new, one of my friends will pop up and advise. These ZyXEL models are Broadcom-based, so compatible with the green cab and they also offer full statistics.

The two models mentioned also have the advantage that they can be reflashed with the superior firmware that was built by one of our number, johnson. This offers full IP MTU 1508, a slight advantage when used in straight modem mode. It also offers stats served up directly via http in a second small modem-internal web server, stats accessible without special apps to access them. I use this firmware and read stats from my modem in my iPad.

I am doubtful that you would see an improvement in performance compared with your HG612, but the HG612 is really old now and who knows about reliability. Not that the VMG1312-B10A is any spring chicken.

Don’t hesitate to ask any questions.

Other members may be able to advise about other ZyXEL Broadcom based models. Some recent ones are Mediatek-based iirc.

[Alex Atkin UK]

If it is indeed a Huawei cabinet then there is a chance it will improve, but without seeing the error statistics we can't take any sort of guess if that will happen.

I would stick with what you have and just leave it alone, see what happens.

[DaveC]

Do you know how far you are from your local FTTC cabinet?   

I'm about 200m away (measured by following my best guess at the route of the cable using this tool, and get a max attainable of about 83/23, which gives a reliable 80/20 sync speed.

[mungler]

Thanks everyone for the input. My feeling was that if it's syncing around 60Mbps I'd expect to see 55ish or more in measured speeds, but I could be wrong.

I'll post the other stats when I can - it involves flinging a long Ethernet cable out the window of my upstairs office, and back in through the downstairs WC to the modem nearby so it's a bit of a pain 😁

[Weaver]

The IP PDU rate should be about 97% of the sync rate unless you’re using the G.INP = HIGH setting in which case it’s down to 91%. Then need to take off headers for IPv4 or IPv6 and TCP with timestamps or without. That costs either 40 bytes IPv4 + TCP or 60 bytes IPv6 + TCP and then an additional 12 bytes or 0 bytes for TCP timestamps or not. So to calculate the slowdown from that need to do say (1500 - 60 ) / 1500 for an assumed 1500 byte IP packet containing 60 byte IP+TCP headers with no timestamps, so that’s another 4% lost. All together TCP payload should come to 93% of sync rate in that case, which was IPv6, no TCP timestamps. I’d say your estimate of 55 Mbps out of 60 was spot on.

In my opinion, speed testers should not be reporting TCP payload rates though as this has to do with the choice of protocols which is arbitrary and doesn’t measure the speed of the link. Reporting IP PDU rate would be the right thing but it’s slightly more difficult so lazy programmers decide not to think.

[mungler]

Power cycled the modem a while ago to see if it would improve things. Things got slightly worse, which I guess isn't surprising.

Connected up ye olde massively long cable and got the below stats:

Code: [Select]

# xdslcmd info --stats
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 18322 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60964 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 18322 Kbps, Downstream rate = 61411 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 3.4 6.4
Attn(dB): 19.6 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 12.9 7.5
VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: -6 20
B: 244 239
M: 1 1
T: 0 64
R: 10 14
S: 0.1265 0.4168
L: 16124 4875
D: 4 1
I: 255 127
N: 255 254
Q: 4 0
V: 3 0
RxQueue: 140 0
TxQueue: 35 0
G.INP Framing: 18 0
G.INP lookback: 31 0
RRC bits: 0 24
Bearer 1
MSGc: 122 -6
B: 0 0
M: 2 0
T: 2 0
R: 16 0
S: 8.0000 0.0000
L: 32 0
D: 1 0
I: 32 0
N: 32 0
Q: 0 0
V: 0 0
RxQueue: 0 0
TxQueue: 0 0
G.INP Framing: 0 0
G.INP lookback: 0 0
RRC bits: 0 0
Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 0 997196
OHFErr: 0 1
RS: 209394752 3676900
RSCorr: 26321 1
RSUnCorr: 0 0
Bearer 1
OHF: 414007 0
OHFErr: 0 0
RS: 3311564 0
RSCorr: 2 0
RSUnCorr: 0 0

Retransmit Counters
rtx_tx: 98109337 0
rtx_c: 357 0
rtx_uc: 396 0

G.INP Counters
LEFTRS: 1 0
minEFTR: 61412 0
errFreeBits: 6228337 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 771736871 0
Data Cells: 64149284 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

Bearer 1
HEC: 0 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 0 0
Data Cells: 0 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 0 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 27 27
AS: 6650

Bearer 0
INP: 52.00 0.00
INPRein: 1.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 0.00 6.69
OR: 0.01 31.06
AgR: 61725.62 18353.50

Bearer 1
INP: 2.00 0.00
INPRein: 2.00 0.00
delay: 0 0
PER: 16.06 0.01
OR: 63.75 0.01
AgR: 63.75 0.01

Bitswap: 4300/4300 15/15

Total time = 1 hours 51 min 17 sec
FEC: 26321 1
CRC: 0 1
ES: 0 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 27 27
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 15 minutes time = 6 min 17 sec
FEC: 1702 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
FEC: 4365 0
CRC: 0 1
ES: 0 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Latest 1 day time = 1 hours 51 min 17 sec
FEC: 26321 1
CRC: 0 1
ES: 0 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 27 27
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
FEC: 0 0
CRC: 0 0
ES: 0 0
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0
Since Link time = 1 hours 50 min 49 sec
FEC: 26321 1
CRC: 0 1
ES: 0 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 0 0
LOS: 0 0
LOF: 0 0
LOM: 0 0


Code: [Select]

# xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 18322 Kbps, Downstream rate = 60964 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 18322 Kbps, Downstream rate = 61411 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3959)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3959)
  VDSL Port Details   Upstream   Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate:     18322 kbps     60964 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power:        7.5 dBm      12.9 dBm
====================================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
  Line Attenuation(dB): 7.4 30.3 44.3   N/A   N/A 14.4 36.0 55.6
Signal Attenuation(dB): 7.4 29.5 43.2   N/A   N/A 21.1 35.6 55.6
SNR Margin(dB): 6.5 6.4 6.5   N/A   N/A 3.4 3.4 3.4
TX Power(dBm): 0.6 -13.3 6.5   N/A   N/A 9.2 8.1 6.7


[tubaman]

At a quick glance I'd say it's running as well as it can. You're on a Huawei cabinet with active G.INP and 3dB on the downstream side. It can't really give any more.

[g3uiss]

Yes as @tubaman has observed. I would leave it alone, as more disconnections could get you penalised by the DLM.

[mungler]

Ok much appreciated gents. So the various error correction etc is what results in ~50Mbps measured speed against a ~60Mbps sync, right?

Thanks to everyone who answered.

[g3uiss]

But speed tests are dependant on many factors including the performance of the testing site, congestion and other matters. The error correction isn’t the major factor.

[Weaver]

Yes, you’re right, various overheads - extra bytes transferred - account for the lower figures reported by speed testers.

[mungler]

Makes sense. I'm seeing 51/16 at the router (eero 6), slightly less at ethernet-connected devices (46/14). If thats expected with my line, thats great, I just wanted to make sure i'm getting the maximum possible. Its already a damn sight better than the 20Mbps or so download I saw when we first arrived here...

Thanks all.

[Weaver]

It’s a little low; perhaps you’re on G.INP high 91% of sync then TCP and IP overheads knock off another 4% approx, and need to knock a little more off if using TCP timestamps. The speedtester could be overloaded. Also you’re not measuring your line but the entire path through the internet to the speed tester server wherever that is. That’s why all things being equal, a speed tester at your own ISP is best, because there’s no path through the wider internet between networks.

Speedtesters are notoriously unreliable; some underread a little, many exaggerate massively, even reporting more than the sync rate and equalling the sync rate is impossible if they are actually supposed to be reporting unadjusted TCP payload throughput because they do need to adjust the figures to account for the byte bloat overheads if they are intending to report sync rate, something I haven’t heard of. All speed testers I know don’t say what it is that they are reporting the speed of! I.e. are they reporting TCP payload throughput, or IP PDU rate (the latter being the best figure to report as it’s then only about the link not the protocols, but sadly never seen this done).