Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Broadband Hardware => Topic started by: snadge on December 08, 2018, 04:38:51 PM
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Hello everyone,
It's been a long time since I was last on here, I'm now working at Sky in the Broadband Tech Team :)
I am after a new router for my 40/10 Plusnet connection and after advice,
I don't know which chipset is in my Cabinet's Dslam (I've forgot how to check), I am after (preferably) a tweakable Broadcom chipset in a router that sports AC (Wi-Fi 5), Gigabit LAN and has External Antennas (Ext. Atn. not a requirement, I will consider routers with internal), I would also like to be able to run Router Monitoring Software such as DSLstats etc..
My connection is 40/10 (82/22 Max Data Rate) on Plusnet and I currently run a BT Home Hub 5B (Broadcom), I have my PC hard-wired into the router via LAN and my Mobile uses 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz on Wi-Fi 4 (Wireless-N).
if anyone could throw some suggestions my way I would really appreciate it,
EDIT: I also use PIA VPN and would like to have it setup on a router
thanks
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Is there something specific that the HH 5B doesnt do that you are looking for? It ticks all your boxes and as you are capped at less than half of attainable in both directions there is nothing to be gained from a different modem.
Maybe some issue with wifi performance as you mention external antennas? If so something like a ubiquiti* WAP?
Stats monitoring isnt something people would usually bother with when they are self limiting with package choice, unless you are having issues?
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Is there something specific that the HH 5B doesnt do that you are looking for? It ticks all your boxes and as you are capped at less than half of attainable in both directions there is nothing to be gained from a different modem.
Maybe some issue with wifi performance as you mention external antennas? If so something like a ubiquii WAP?
Stats monitoring isnt something people would usually bother with when they are self limiting with package choice, unless you are having issues?
thanks for the quick reply,
I may be going onto 80Mb at some point, I dont have any issues, I just like to be able to get access to all my bit-loading, QLN, SNR stats etc, the current router is ancient and i would like something new at the helm
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FTTC cab - How to lookup location & type of DSLAM (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15409.0.html)
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I may be going onto 80Mb at some point, I dont have any issues, I just like to be able to get access to all my bit-loading, QLN, SNR stats etc, the current router is ancient and i would like something new at the helm
Well now we are talking, at less than half of attainable you would have vanishingly low error rates, but attainable figures are not always that precise so on an 80mb package full stats will probably be useful.
Are 2 boxes something you would consider, or do they feel too much of a waste of space/power to you?
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@ j0hn - thanks for the link.
@ Johnson - I wouldn't consider two boxes no... all in one only, I used to have an HG612 and Router but it is not something I would like to do now, I like being able to record all my stats etc, I used to use scripts to capture my data by the hour and save them as graphs, comes in handy when yer broadband goes down as evidence - this happened 6 years ago with Sky , 3 months, 20+ calls and 7 engineer visits to get my 18Mb connection back up from 9Mb ...turned out the problem was a split pair done by the first engineer, had I not had the stats as proof of my connection before I doubt I would have got it repaired, it was the evidence AND me never giving up that got it repaired.
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I have used a number of ZyXEL's and right now use a Netgear D6220. All worked or work well with full stats, however with our house WiFi is problematic. Now I use a 3 disc set of BT Whole Home WiFi mesh set up which solves both 2g and 5g issues I had, and have turned off WiFi on the Netgear.
Stuart
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@ Johnson - I wouldn't consider two boxes no... all in one only, I used to have an HG612 and Router but it is not something I would like to do now, I like being able to record all my stats etc, I used to use scripts to capture my data by the hour and save them as graphs, comes in handy when yer broadband goes down as evidence - this happened 6 years ago with Sky , 3 months, 20+ calls and 7 engineer visits to get my 18Mb connection back up from 9Mb ...turned out the problem was a split pair done by the first engineer, had I not had the stats as proof of my connection before I doubt I would have got it repaired, it was the evidence AND me never giving up that got it repaired.
I understand many people have no love for 2 box solutions, but, forgive me if I have misunderstood, are you suggesting you need a single box solution for the ease of gathering stats? Because that is not the case. I must have that wrong.
Does the HH 5B not allow stats gathering? I have no experience with it, but usually if broadcom based its possible to get stats out.
In terms of reasons for a new modem/router (other than "this ones old") the only advantages a newer device could offer you are more CPU power to run things like VPN directly on the router or more intelligent and robust QoS. With a (future) 80mb connection a decent amount of grunt would be required to run a VPN at full speed or shape the traffic with an advanced method such as SQM (smart queue management), is this something you are interested in?
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I understand many people have no love for 2 box solutions, but, forgive me if I have misunderstood, are you suggesting you need a single box solution for the ease of gathering stats? Because that is not the case. I must have that wrong.
Does the HH 5B not allow stats gathering? I have no experience with it, but usually if broadcom based its possible to get stats out.
In terms of reasons for a new modem/router (other than "this ones old") the only advantages a newer device could offer you are more CPU power to run things like VPN directly on the router or more intelligent and robust QoS. With a (future) 80mb connection a decent amount of grunt would be required to run a VPN at full speed or shape the traffic with an advanced method such as SQM (smart queue management), is this something you are interested in?
oh i forgot about that lol... i DO use a VPN through my devices and would like to get it set up on a router if I could. As far as I can remember not all broadcom chipsets can be accessed (most can) and the HH5 is one of those you cant access, been a long time since Ive done stuff like that so my memory isnt great atm,
I use PIA VPN at the moment, but im jumping between VPNs every month until i find the one best suited.
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Apologies for confusing the topic by bringing up router based VPN gateways! ;D
I have toyed with running one, but its kind of nice to have per device control over whether the traffic goes out on the VPN or normal connection. I would hope systems at a workplace would raise at least some eyebrows and hopefully red flags if an employee checked their email or VPNed in from a work laptop from an IP in Panama... ;)
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Apologies for confusing the topic by bringing up router based VPN gateways! ;D
I have toyed with running one, but its kind of nice to have per device control over whether the traffic goes out on the VPN or normal connection. I would hope systems at a workplace would raise at least some eyebrows and hopefully red flags if an employee checked their email or VPNed in from a work laptop from an IP in Panama... ;)
which VPN service do you use>?
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None currently, I tried nordvpn a while ago but let it expire as I didnt end up using it as much as I thought I would. Still itches at my brain though.
Which ones have you used, do you get near the full 40mb of your downstream?
In terms of a router that could do the full 80mb with Openvpn you would need one of the fatter ones, I am biased towards OpenWRT (current router is an x86 thin client with a dual core 1.8ghz amd cpu), so I would suggest the newer linksys WRT range the 1900ACS or 3200ACM... but this would need a separate modem.
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Hi snadge <waves paw>. :)
Have you looked here (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/board,52.0.html) to see what other members might have available?
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I have upgraded to 80Mb getting a 73MB sync (should be getting 79.9MB sync as my MDR is 87MB)
@ KITZ burakkucat - Hi :), I will take a look thanKS
@ johnson - I am using monthly on various VPNs to see which is best, currently iam using PIA and its been excellent, I get full whack on it and its been extremely reliable, I don't want to use 2 bits of hardware if i can avoid it
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Hi all
I'm on an ECI cabinet and had my Plusnet upgraded to 80Mbps (getting a 73MB sync ((67Mbps throughput)) from an 87MB max data rate)
I have the Netgear D7000 in my sights but I'm looking to see what other options I have
As I say this is what I would like the DSL router to have the following:
1. Beamforming
2. Access to SNR/QLN/Bit-Loading stats
3. Broadcom chipset (preferred)
4. 800Mhz+ CPU & 128MB+ RAM
5. Gbit LAN
6. G.INP (I know my cab doesn't support it)
7. Be wall mountable (preferred)
8. Dual/Tri Band WiFi
9. USB port (preferred but not essential)
dunno if I've missed anything out lol, Vectoring but I've been told that wont be any good
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Is there something specific that the HH 5B doesnt do that you are looking for? It ticks all your boxes and as you are capped at less than half of attainable in both directions there is nothing to be gained from a different modem.
I am told that the Plusnet Hub One, rebadged BT HH 5 can't normally be configured to use a 10.x.x.x home network. Is there a fix for this problem?
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I am told that the Plusnet Hub One, rebadged BT HH 5 can't normally be configured to use a 10.x.x.x home network. Is there a fix for this problem?
I have since upgraded to 80MB and the HH5B has the TELNET locked out, it does not have G.INP or Beam Forming, also I want a faster chipset, I just want a new router as ive used this for years
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The HH5B supports G.INP in both directions perfectly fine.
The HH5A supports G.INP on the downstream. A firmware update should be able to make it work on the upstream also if it doesn't already.
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The HH5B supports G.INP in both directions perfectly fine.
The HH5A supports G.INP on the downstream. A firmware update should be able to make it work on the upstream also if it doesn't already.
does it? didnt know that...
anyway it doesnt support beamforming and telnet is locked out
also my cabinet is ECI/Lantiq - do these chipsets use G.INP?
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I may be wrong, but my web page load times on my PC are nowhere near as snappy as my dads page load times on his connection on his PC, only big differences are he uses Windows 7 and I use Windows 10 & he is on ADSL and im on VDSL - we both have similar PC setups, he is on a 17Mb ADSL Talk Talk connection with 21ms latency and Iam on a 67Mbps VDSL Plusnet connection with 21ms latency
Im just wondering if the CPU/Chipset is struggling?
I will have to install Windows 7 on a partition to find out if its windows 10 thats the cause, but every time I go to my dads Im amazed at the speed of which his web pages load
EDIT: I also get a poor grade on ThinkBroadband's speedtest - it says its a grade B for latency while downloading and grade D for latency while uploading ?? (bufferbloat it mentions)
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I doubt it's a router CPU issue, if it were, then everyone would be suffering the same issue.
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I may be wrong, but my web page load times on my PC are nowhere near as snappy as my dads page load times on his connection on his PC, only big differences are he uses Windows 7 and I use Windows 10 & he is on ADSL and im on VDSL - we both have similar PC setups, he is on a 17Mb ADSL Talk Talk connection with 21ms latency and Iam on a 67Mbps VDSL Plusnet connection with 21ms latency
It may be down to DNS performance. I do not know how well Plusnet's DNS servers perform, nor do I know how good the HH5B is at providing DNS name resolution services (since, in most cases, the gateway is a DNS server which does its own lookups to other DNS servers). You could try some benchmarking (https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm) (add the Plusnet DNS servers in the list for comparison) or even just go straight ahead configure the computer to use Plusnet's (https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-dns-server-and-website-settings/#what-settings-should-i-use-if-i-want-to-change-my-dns-server-addresses), Google's (https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/) or another DNS provider's servers directly.
I also get a poor grade on ThinkBroadband's speedtest - it says its a grade B for latency while downloading and grade D for latency while uploading ?? (bufferbloat it mentions)
Bufferbloat is quite common on consumer connections, regardless of speed. Quality of Service (QoS) would certainly be effective for use on the upstream by rate limiting to approx. 95% for all data. Unfortunately, for the downstream, there is not a whole lot you can do unless you are able to rate limit your downstream from the ISP's side (which cannot be done on Plusnet) to reduce bufferbloat (since data is going to be sent down the line at the maximum rate). I know the HH5B doesn't have QoS, so your only choice is to limit speeds on individual devices until you replace the router if you are noticing lag when downloading/uploading.
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Bufferbloat is quite common on consumer connections, regardless of speed. Quality of Service (QoS) would certainly be effective for use on the upstream by rate limiting to approx. 95% for all data. Unfortunately, for the downstream, there is not a whole lot you can do unless you are able to rate limit your downstream from the ISP's side (which cannot be done on Plusnet) to reduce bufferbloat (since data is going to be sent down the line at the maximum rate). I know the HH5B doesn't have QoS, so your only choice is to limit speeds on individual devices until you replace the router if you are noticing lag when downloading/uploading.
This is almost complete nonsense. You're not going to solve bufferbloat just by setting a lower upstream speed limit on your router. All that would happen is that data would leave the buffer at the lower rate. That's not going to stop the buffer filling up nor being too large!
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This is almost complete nonsense. You're not going to solve bufferbloat just by setting a lower upstream speed limit on your router. All that would happen is that data would leave the buffer at the lower rate. That's not going to stop the buffer filling up nor being too large!
With SQM on something like OpenWRT, you can reduce bufferbloat to be almost negligible, if you are willing to reduce your down and up speeds. By doing this you control the buffer in your router and the algorithm is able to manage the flow more effectively to reduce it (something like cake).
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Sure, but I think that's mainly about the fancy scheduling algorithm rather than the rate limit.
It has occurred to me that the queue size imposed by a rate limiter could be smaller that whatever size queue you end up without it. So there.
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Correct, you are rate limiting the codel and specifying max throughput so that it always has room/overhead to operate efficiently.
All codels will add 'some' latency though as all data throughput is analyzed & then prioritized...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoDel
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I was thinking more about the just slapping a rate limit on a router that doesn't have any fancy scheduler.
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I was thinking more about the just slapping a rate limit on a router that doesn't have any fancy scheduler.
Ah I see, yes that would make no difference from my understanding. I think we were talking at cross purposes :)
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...lost me a bit in all that lol....
I did read that QoS could help with 'Bufferbloat', however, I re-tested under ThinkBB's 'NON-SSL' tester and in that one I got:
GRADE A (latency while downloading)
GRADE B (latency while uploading)
which is an improvement over the SSL version which yielded B (download latency) and D (upload latency)
Are there any documents or videos that explain what BUFFERBLOAT is and how it can be avoided?
So far Im looking at the Netgear
thanks
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From my current awareness, the only decent way to combat bufferbloat is via the SQM packages as part of OpenWRT. I haven't seen an OEM get anything like the results you get using cake.
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Ive just watched this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C72c4B277Vg) youtube video which shows you how to combat it, I wasnt aware that its caused by your own router, I thought it was something that happened to traffic en-route (data spending too much time in buffers of switches).. the person in that video seems to fix it by reducing the throughput from his router down to 97% using QoS
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Ive just watched this (http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest) youtube video . . .
:hmm: Hmm, I see no YouTube video when taking that link. :no:
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sorry BK, thanks for pointing it out though :)
here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C72c4B277Vg
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C72c4B277Vg[/youtube]
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I am not familiar with a limitation of bandwidth alone stopping/reducing bufferbloat. I suspect QoS is required as well.
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I ordered a Zyxel VMG8924 B10A for £33 and that has QoS and should help, im having problems finding out what the CPU is running at, I may be wrong but I believe the 63168 chipset is Dual-Core but can run 'upto' 1Ghz and the BTHH5B Iam using at the moment is the 63168 at 800Mhz, I was after a router with a faster CPU but I forgot when I ordered the Zyxel lol...
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I thought the 63168 was usually 400MHz.
I think the newer devices boasting about their 1GHz CPU clock speeds are using a different CPU architecture anyway, so the CPU clock speeds are not directly comparable. The 63168, in common with lots of older routers, is MIPS architecture, while the newer 63138 is ARM architecture.
I would expect the bulk of the work to be offloaded from the main CPU onto dedicated parts of the chip anyway. I don't think there's much you could tell about a router's actual capabilities and performance based on its CPU clock speed.
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A faster CPU isn't going to make much of any difference on such low speeds.
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A faster CPU isn't going to make much of any difference on such low speeds.
im on 73Mb sync?
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Agreeing with Gigabitethernet.
I just want to point out that the processor speed in a modem has nothing to do with the dsl link throughout. Higher effective dsl link throughput speeds reported as ‘sync rates’ are determined by two things: Firstly, there is the possibility of putting more bits in each ‘symbol’ sent (more ‘detail’, if you like), that is a greater number of possible values that each transmitted symbol can have. Surprisingly, however, the symbol rate is always the same: 4312.5 symbols are sent per second. Secondly, higher speeds are achieved by having less additional baggage included in with the transmitted data in the form of redundant extra error correction information added. If the line is bad, then this extra information has to be included in order to allow errors to be corrected by mathematically back-calculating what the true values sent were. This extra info slows things down as it leaves less room for real user data.
A sending modem sends stuff at a certain rate which is fixed and is not determined by how fast a processor can go. A sender uses hardware that cranks the data out at a certain rate and the receiver has hardware that decodes the incoming signal at that same rate which is always fixed, and the hardware is designed to pick up incoming stuff at that fixed rate. It’s no more difficult for a receiver or sender to handle a supposedly ‘fast’ line, because the actual symbol rate is always the same at 4312.5 symbols per second.
If you did base n arithmetic at school, think of base 2, or base 3, base 8, base 10, base 16, or base 60 etc. The higher the base the more information is packed into each digit or ‘symbol’. This is the first part of the thing that governs effective speed as mentioned earlier.
If your line is hissy, or it does not carry high frequencies well, then the number of bits put into each symbol (number of possible values, the ‘base’) will have to be reduced so that a received symbols can be recognised reliably. There may be various kinds of disturbances on the link, aside from the signal just not propagating to the far end or not being audible against the noise background. Examples are burst noise, interference and crosstalk. To help deal with these problems then added error correction info will be needed and this wasteful extra info will reduce the real user data rate.
Apologies if you knew all of that already.
Aside from the modem side of things, routers and firewalls may have trouble processing large numbers of packets per second though, because they have to perform checks on each packet, or make changes to packets, if they are acting as firewalls, or when they are performing basic routing functions involving working out which link a packet should be redirected to. A router or firewall may be asked to do more or less work per packet depending on how it is configured. If the transmitted packets are very short, this could mean a lot of packets per second and then this could mean that a router might need a better cpu to keep up. This is all about how many packets per second are sent down the link and what the router is being asked to do though, nothing to do with faster or slower links at the modem or dsl level.
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Thanks for all that info Weaver, I knew some of it, like the basics of interleaving, INP and IP Packet Transmission... nice to have the under-workings explained though as I like to learn as much as possible, so thanks...
the reason I wanted a faster CPU was just in case my CPU was bottle-necking, it won't hurt to have a faster CPU, doesn't matter so much now as Ive purchased a Zyxell VMG8924-B10A and its great so far, I will leave a review after a few weeks, its syncs about 2% slower than the BTHH5B on the same chipset , but it's worth it for the slew of things I gain.
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...just to add to my previous reply, on idle my VMG8924 cpu usage is 12% but jumps up to 65% every 5 seconds or so
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The thing about faster or slower sync rates is partly down to the SNRM the modems end up with. Some modems are just plain aggressive and they soon end up at a lower SNRM and so they go faster because they are taking more risks. My DLink DSL 320B-Z1 devices are a perfect example, they always seem to end up at around 1.5 dB SNRM or sometimes even lower quite soon even with a target SNRM that is supposed to be 3dB. That’s the reason they get the speeds that they do. If I were to tweak my ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A so that it’s SNRM was down to that same level then it would be running at a way way faster sync rate.
So if you have a 2% sync rate difference then that is not a lot and there are a lot of things that have to be considered when comparing devices. With a difference that small, time of day when the device syncs is going to be important. I can get large differences in speed simply by carefully picking the time of day when I train up. As an extreme example, I get a 4.5 dB difference in upstream SNRM with one of my lines between one half of the day and the other half, with a sharp jump from high state to low state.
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OpenWRT has done a bit of work with throughput and CPU. I believe mostly any router will be fine up until about 300Mbps when you might see some difference. It is only at 1Gb and faster you really see a difference.
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im on 73Mb sync?
That is a low speed relatively.