For some reason, I’m not getting the full speed I expect from the upstream side. I have one line that is very slow upstream, but that shouldn’t make a difference. I got 1.5 Mbps upstream according to speedtesters some while back and now I’m only getting 1.1.5 according to the AA speedtest2.aa.net.uk and the sync rates haven’t changed; other speedtester testmy.net reports 1.4 Mbps upstream though so this is very weird. I’ve asked AA if they have any ideas and they have sanity checked me and are thinking about it. This is discussed in a recent thread.
The combined downstream rate is superb 10.1 Mbps from speedtest2.aa.net.uk from my four slow lines and very close to the theoretical maximum allowing for overheads, and with sync rates downstream of 2.9-3.0 Mbps total 11.8 it’s very efficient indeed, close to 88% which is the theoretical IP limit. The speed tester figure presumable include a reduction for TCP protocol overhead and so it isn’t directly comparable with the IP rates, and may be exaggerated. Four lines is really pushing your luck too far for TCP, and with three or fewer lines efficiency will be better. Don’t know why the
upstream efficiency I see as reported by some speedtesters varies a lot from month to month; long-standing mystery.
One thing; when you order your Firebrick, tell AA you want to do bonding as they need to give you the more expensive ‘fully loaded’ software load. They’ll configure it for you and I can give you my config file if you wish, as an example, which is very complex and very heavily commented.
There are a couple of other kitz members who have Firebricks too and half a dozen AA users.
You’re used to your ubiquiti and so sticking with it is a good thing. You can download the Fb2900 manual at
https://www.firebrick.co.uk/support/manuals/ so that might help you decide by showing you what it’s capable of.