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[bogof]

It certainly will be interesting to see if Zen GEA on CF has the same issues as OR.  If it doesn't, that would be extremely curious and give them some leverage to get OR to look into it deeper?

I don't think it's even a given that Zen have this issue all over their GEA network, you'd think more folk would report it if it was widespread.  It could be related to certain locations and / or equipment combinations.

For what it's worth I see the same as you now, that my gateway can either be one of the lo0.bng* gateways or a vt*.cor* gateway.  Whereas on GEA it would always be lo0.bng*.    While there are quite notable single thread differences between the gateways via BTW, all of them seem capable of maxing out my line easily for the Speedtest.net speedtesters, while that wasn't the case with any gateway on the GEA network. 

It's a shame it didn't really seem to get much past 2nd line support.  You'd think this kind of failure is gold if you're trying to optimise a complex network.

You You BQM says UDM, I assume Ubiquiti? This is running PPPoE on Linux, check what firewall settings you have, as it may not perform at full line speed using PPPoE, especially if you are running IPS etc.

https://community.ui.com/questions/ETA-on-bugfix-for-UDM-Pro-bad-PPPoE-performance/9119aa98-412f-41c7-9188-a30036c2e4c2

Maybe turn of some of the services on the UDM briefly and run speed test(s) again.

Now the line is actually working well I did spend a bit of time looking into the Unifi UDM-Pro SE performance re: PPPoE.  I am currently using the built-in 2.5G copper interface.  It does PPPoE at line speed fine if you disable IPS/IDS and traffic / device identification.  If you enable traffic / device identification it just about limps up to line rate (maybe -2 or -5Mbps on the downstream, still >900Mbps).  If you enable moderate levels of IPS/IDS then performance drops to around 750Mbps.  I've just read recent discoveries that this is much improved if you use an SFP module for the WAN instead of the built-in 2.5G copper interface; I've got a Ubiquiti SFP module on the way to try that out.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I've just read recent discoveries that this is much improved if you use an SFP module for the WAN instead of the built-in 2.5G copper interface; I've got a Ubiquiti SFP module on the way to try that out.

Its my understanding any NIC offloading is moot on a router/gateway so how would this make a difference?  You'd expect IPS/IDS to be an issue regardless as its a heavy CPU task.

[Weaver]

Alex meant that AA over CF is currently England-only. I’m of course not in England.

[bogof]

Its my understanding any NIC offloading is moot on a router/gateway so how would this make a difference?  You'd expect IPS/IDS to be an issue regardless as its a heavy CPU task.

Reading between the lines of some slightly cryptic posts that may be from non-native speakers - it's a multicore CPU and there's suggestion that the core affinity of various things may be different when you use the SFP slot, which may mean the IPS / IDS on the SFP slot ends up running on a different core and not fighting PPPoE for resources (or similar).  Or perhaps the route into the CPU is somehow less expensive computationally for the 10G SFP port than it is for the 2.5G copper port.

Anyway, I don't know that I fully believe it, but it was worth the £25 that the SFP cost to try it out (instead of the 2.5G copper port).  There are at least a couple of people on the thread on the Ubiquiti support site that have said moving their WAN to SFP->Copper converter allowed them to use IPS/IDS and hit full rate.  I can easily test before and after and see if I see a similar difference in behaviour.  Should have it by the weekend to play with.

[burakkucat]

Alex meant that AA over CF is currently England-only. I’m of course not in England.

I assumed the former and I know the latter. But I'll scroll backwards and look again . . .

Ah, so presumably that is the reason why AAISP are England only?

I think it best if I just make a quick modification using my moderator's "override button".

[Weaver]

I have this extremely dodgy recollection that someone told me there was some CityFibre development in the Glasgow-Edinburgh ‘Central Belt’ of Scotland. (Or wherever the ‘Central Belt’ extends to.) Is there any truth in this or is it just nonsense? After all, J0hn will know much better than I do.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I think it best if I just make a quick modification using my moderator's "override button".

  I feel violated. 

[Derpy]

Reading between the lines of some slightly cryptic posts that may be from non-native speakers - it's a multicore CPU and there's suggestion that the core affinity of various things may be different when you use the SFP slot, which may mean the IPS / IDS on the SFP slot ends up running on a different core and not fighting PPPoE for resources (or similar).  Or perhaps the route into the CPU is somehow less expensive computationally for the 10G SFP port than it is for the 2.5G copper port.

Anyway, I don't know that I fully believe it, but it was worth the £25 that the SFP cost to try it out (instead of the 2.5G copper port).  There are at least a couple of people on the thread on the Ubiquiti support site that have said moving their WAN to SFP->Copper converter allowed them to use IPS/IDS and hit full rate.  I can easily test before and after and see if I see a similar difference in behaviour.  Should have it by the weekend to play with.

I have an SE (on IDnet) and the £20 SPF module does improve the PPPoE situation for some reason, I even did a clean install to do testing and the 2.5G capped out around 850Mb/s at times (with no IDS) but the SPF allowed near enough full rates.
This excludes IPv6 which will have issues and hit a problem getting full speed. The SPF allows near full speed with IDS on medium for me.
If you log in to ssh on and run top you should see a process ksoftirqd/0 taking large amounts of CPU and when it gets high it causes speeds to drop.

[bogof]

I have an SE (on IDnet) and the £20 SPF module does improve the PPPoE situation for some reason, I even did a clean install to do testing and the 2.5G capped out around 850Mb/s at times (with no IDS) but the SPF allowed near enough full rates.
This excludes IPv6 which will have issues and hit a problem getting full speed. The SPF allows near full speed with IDS on medium for me.
If you log in to ssh on and run top you should see a process ksoftirqd/0 taking large amounts of CPU and when it gets high it causes speeds to drop.

Thanks for confirming.  Will be interesting to see what my results are like.

[j0hn]

I have this extremely dodgy recollection that someone told me there was some CityFibre development in the Glasgow-Edinburgh ‘Central Belt’ of Scotland. (Or wherever the ‘Central Belt’ extends to.) Is there any truth in this or is it just nonsense? After all, J0hn will know much better than I do.

Cityfibre are rolling out in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness.

They cover the majority of any town/city they deploy to.

https://cityfibre.com/about-us/rollout

[Weaver]

So I wonder what the "England-only" thing with AA is about ?

[Alex Atkin UK]

So I wonder what the "England-only" thing with AA is about ?

We already covered this above.

Cityfibres "national" product is England only, currently. I'm sure that will change over time.

AFAIK AAISP don't have anywhere "unbundled" and rely on other carriers to get across the country.

Cityfibre only launched their national access product fairly recently. Before that you needed your own kit in each of their FEX's that you wanted to offer services in.
That's why you have so many different ISP's available in different areas on Cityfibre.

[j0hn]

So I wonder what the "England-only" thing with AA is about ?

In England AAISP can buy Cityfibres "national" access product.
Cityfibre give them access to their English network via a link in London.
In short it's Cityfibre backhauling the traffic to AAISP.

In order for AAISP to sell Cityfibre in Scotland they would need to install their own kit in Cityfibres FEX's (Fibre Exchange) for every City they wanted access to.

In time hopefully Cityfibre expand their national access product to include the Scottish FEX's. That would mean AAISP could access Scottish customers via their link to Cityfibre in London.

[Weaver]

@Alex I understood that, but wondered why the CF situation is different in Scotland.

[bogof]

For anyone interested, moving my WAN connection to the ONT from the built-in 2.5G copper WAN interface on the UDM-Pro SE to a UF-RJ45-1G SFP 1G SFP module in the 10G SFP+ slot took the performance with medium IDS/IPS settings from 750-800Mbps back up to full line rate - now hitting 918/110 even with high IPS/IDS settings.  There is a very clear difference in the performance from the switch to the SFP module, so it is well worth the £25 or so on a £600 device.  I could have done it cheaper with an off-brand SFP, but I fancied the easier route and so decided to get the Ubiquiti one.

It's a shame the UDM-Pro SE 2.5G WAN performance seems to let the side down a bit once you add PPPoE, IDS/IPS, and a fast connection, but anyway now I'm fully up to speed with a non-GEA connection that isn't adding a network constraint, and all the router features I wanted enabled.

The only slight outstanding annoyance is that with all these things improved you are still left on Zen with the gateway lottery.  I've seen quite a few connections to the Manchester gateways in recent days, which I do quickly drop if I notice, but slightly more sinister is the difference in single threaded throughputs on the various London gateways.  Anyway, it will do for now, but I think I'm going to be shopping for a new provider in May.