Can my PC stop holding me back so I can be free to wander to super-highway? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: PerranOak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2021, 05:35:27 pm
content: As I now have FTTP, I'm getting download speeds of 300 or even 400Mbps ... on the iPad.On my PC, I'm lucky if I get (wifi) 60Mbps!I imagine it's that I have a crappy wifi adapter. Some info I found on it:Name: WiFiDescription: Qualcomm QCA9565 802.11b/g/n Wireless AdapterStatus: OperationalMaximum transmission unit: 1492Link speed (Receive/Transmit): 144/72 (Mbps)DHCP enabled: YesThis seems to suggest that I should be getting 144Mbps.May I ask two questions:1. Can I get 144Mbps on this adapter by some sort of jiggery-pokery?2. Do I have to buy another one to get up to 300-400Mbps?Cheers.

author: fordem
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2021, 07:42:21 pm
content: You'll have to replace it - the 144mbps is a theoretical maximum, you'll never achieve it in practice - you'll also need to go 802.11ac, which is 5GHz, and that means you're going to have to sacrifice range for throughput.

author: PerranOak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2021, 10:16:32 pm
content: That’s pretty.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 01:18:03 am
content: Don't forget the FTTP end... For max speed, ditch the domestic router and get youself a lot of gaming wifi bandwidth...

author: PerranOak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 11:42:42 am
content: Sure but will my PC cope?How can I tell what my current router can do?Monkeh: yeah, I chickened-out of wiring the place - couldn't be @rsed!

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 12:30:38 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 09, 2021, 05:35:27 pmIn practice about half of the WiFi transfer speed is available.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 01:16:32 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 10, 2021, 01:18:03 amWhen it comes to reliably routing high traffic scenarios i tend to ditch the usual consumer vendors of Asus Netgear TPLink...etc and go for something along the lines of Mikrotik.Had plenty of weird instability issues with the home stuff from those well known brands, they also tend to choke on a large amount of small network packets. Had weird stuff like DHCP stop handing out addresses before, then you reboot it and it works again, firmware becomes old and unmaintained and full of security holes.Once i went with a Mikrotik router it was all much better and only time it ever needed a reboot is after a firmware update (and no stupid reboots after changing settings). All of there routers run a common RouterOS software that gets regular updates and have features common in large rack mount enterprise routers(some say its even better than cisco). Only down side is that this being a professional router means setting up the huge walls of settings can be rather complicated if you are not IT as a day job.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 02:09:47 pm
content: If running an Ethernet cable is not a workable option, have you considered MOCA or hacking some cheap Homeplug adapters to work over phone lines?Keep that old wireless card, Qualcomm cards work great for wireless hacking with Kali.Quote from: Berni on March 10, 2021, 01:16:32 pmThat's not a high bar to beat, if my experience with Cisco devices at work around 2013-2016 is of any indication. Even some fairly basic stuff goes wrong, for example the 5GHz part of a dual band AP is unreliable and stops working all the time.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 05:09:53 pm
content: An AC1900 USB dongle (or PCIe card) is approx 600Mbps on cranky 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps on 5GHz; which is about as much as can be squeezed out of 802.11ac.That's if your router isn't too antique to deal with the throughput. How fast you want to go is limited only by how much you are willing to spend.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 05:11:55 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 10, 2021, 05:09:53 pmWhich are essentially marketing numbers, not real throughput.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 06:23:52 pm
content: Puff indeed. But there is now 802.11ax (a.k.a "Wifi 6") which has a wide 160MHz bandwidth and speeds of 2400Mbs+Why you need that much spectrum is anyone's guess, but a long time ago we though 64Kbps was freekin' FAST.@PerranOak, check out 'overclockers.co.uk' for some serious router and PC card combinations. Just leave your credit card at the door.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 06:25:58 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 10, 2021, 06:23:52 pmYes, get ripped off for some consumer trash in an ugly box.Start with a better adapter for the PC, and look at the router only if you're not satisfied with getting performance on par with your iPad. And if you do look at the router.. look at real ones from names like Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Aruba..

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 06:48:28 pm
content: Your adapter is using 2.4 Ghz band, probably 802.11n, and the peak is 144 mbps ... your router/modem/access point will most likely be optimized for 5 ghz and 802.11acYour best option would be to get a 5ghz 802.11ac wireless card, best would be one that goes in a pci-e x1 slot, they cost 15-30 uk pounds.Depending on what you buy (how many antennas and if the card can combine the antennas together to give you more speed) and what your modem/router/access point supports you'll have a maximum of 433 mbps or higher.With 802.11ax you can get more than 1gbps but it's more finicky, i think it's more sensitive to distance and obstructions and you're probably still better off with a higher quality 802.11ac card and router instead of going overboard with ax.Powerline networking is another option, you can get high speeds, 2-500 mbps is doable, but keep in mind they have higher latency, it's not quite as low latency as direct cable or even wireless, but if you're not gaming competitively it should be fine.Quote from: PerranOak on March 09, 2021, 05:35:27 pm

author: BrokenYugo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2021, 08:18:21 pm
content: Are you just looking for higher numbers or actually feeling performance issues? Bufferbloat (a problem solved at the router end) will make perfectly adequate rates feel sluggish doing browser type activities, or give big ping spikes when gaming.

author: PerranOak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 11:19:49 am
content: Cheers all.What happened was, when the guy fitted the new connection he said I should test the speed to see if I was happy. I tested it on the iPad and clocked 350mbps. Previously, we'd been getting 2mbps (yes, two, that's not a typo) so I was very happy.Later I tested it on my PC and got 40mbps: not happy.They then gave me some bull about the guaranteed speed being for wired connections (hence another post of mine re Ethernet), b@stards.It's really that I want the speed that I pay for. Sure, the iPad element is great, no complaints. However, I use the PC quite a lot (though not for gaming) and am resentful that I have to pay more (wifi cards, etc.) to get the speed I was quoted. (yes, I should've read the small print)

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 12:49:49 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 11, 2021, 11:19:49 amIf say the job of the ISP is just to bring internet to your house. Its your own matter on how you want to connect all of your devices around the house together and to the internet pipe that your ISP provided for you. By the looks of it the ISP did a good job of bringing a nice fat fast internet pipe to you.You have a ethernet port on the back of your modem that is your nice fast on-ramp onto the internet super highway. All you need to do is build the local road network around your own house that lets your devices get to it just as fast. It's your house so its your choice on how you do that, just like it is your choice what furniture you want inside your house.But typically all general purpose wireless solutions are fairly poor in performance and are unreliable. This is the reason why cable TV exsists, the reason why PC monitors connect to a PC over a cable and not wirelessly. You simply can't get the same bandwidth trough radio waves as you can over a copper cable. Wireless links tend to only be fast and reliable when a good RF communication channel can be made between them, such as microwave links where two highly directional antennas are placed precisely aligned to each other with no obstructions between them. WiFi is no such thing, it has poor performance omnidirectional antennas with lots of obstructions in the form of walls and furniture. You can get some impressive performance with 5GHz ac WiFi, but it will not reliably cover more than a few rooms unless your house is very tiny.Best solution is to run a CAT6 ethernet cable, letting you get up to 10Gbit speeds around your house. Next best thing is power line networking that uses mains cables to transfer data. The poor reach of the fast 5GHz WiFi can also be solved with this (since you don't want to drag a ethernet cable around with a laptop) since you can install 2 or 3 separate access points that each cover a part of the house with a strong fast wifi signal, then backhaul the data to the modem over fast reliable ethernet cables. You also want to buy your own router and not use the routing functionality built into the ISP supplied modem. Most of these home networking equipment is crap as i said, but ISPs will typically give you network equipment from a cheep noname brand that is even worse. All of this has become particularly important now that fast fiber internet is becoming available to households. But if you like to transfer files between computers in the house over the network its even more important to avoid slow performance.It is not unusual to spend $300 on building a proper home network and a good few days running cables around the house to wire it all up. But if the house has a lot of heavy internet users it is well worth it as it saves a ton of frustration and grief for the next 15 years to come.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 02:35:04 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 11, 2021, 11:19:49 amWhat's next, you're going to complain you don't get given a computer with your connection? That you need to supply your own electricity?

author: PerranOak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 02:48:57 pm
content: Cheers both.I realise that I am moaning and need to do something about my various connections.I think that ISPs would save themselves a few calls if they advertised more clearly though.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 02:52:19 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 11, 2021, 11:19:49 amYou complain they did not upgrade your computer. Why should they even touch it? What a pain in the ass unreasonable customer.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 02:57:34 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 11, 2021, 02:48:57 pmWhat should they advertise? That it will be limited by your own hardware if you chose to use it wirelessly? If you had chosen to use it wired with outdated computer with 100 megabit ethernet card inside, would you complain as well? In either case, it's not their problem. And how should they even know what network card you have?

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 04:07:13 pm
content: So, what throughput exactly were you expecting from your PC with its 144Mbit card?? (considering as has already been pointed out that's the link speed not the throughput)Even your title correctly says "Can myPCstop holding me back", so why are you moaning about your ISP?

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 04:36:24 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 11, 2021, 02:48:57 pmThe provider's responsibility ends at the demarc (demarcation point). Anything behind that is yours.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 05:04:14 pm
content: Quote from: PerranOak on March 11, 2021, 02:48:57 pmThey advertised it perfectly fine since you can clearly get good speeds.Be thankful that your ISP is not taking advantage of you. Some ISPs out there will indeed fix your network for you too, but by doing so they will rent you out networking equipment like routers and wifi accesspoints. As a result you keep paying a few dollars worth of rent every month for having a cheep piece of crap piece of network equipment lended to you that costs 20$ in the store. So after a year or so the ISP recovered there investment in the value of the cheep $20 access point and keep turning a extra profit of $20 per year off you. Nothing in life is truly free.This is the equivalent of paying the water company to lay a new big fat water pipe to your house so you can get 10x more gallons per hour out of it. But once they hook it up to the water meter you keep using your old thin pipes to take it around the house. Then you complain to them that the water company didn't provide you with the service you paid for. They are a water distribution company so they upgraded their infrastructure to your wishes, not the local plumber that comes fix the pipes that you own. Technically they are not allowed to even touch your pipes without your permission, just the same as you are not allowed to tamper with the water companies infrastructure.If you want someone else to upgrade your network infrastructure for you then you need to call the "internet plumber" to come do the network overhaul for you. This is mostly in the form of computer repair shops that might be able to send a repair technician to set up your network for you. Typically this is only done by people who don't have the computer skills to do it themselves, since then not only do you still need to buy the new network equipment, but you also have to pay the computer repair shop for the technicians time taken to install it all.In regards to my ISPs service (UPC Telemach) they did an amazing job. They put the fiber cable into our yard, ran it to the house, put in a splice box, ran it up the house, fished it trough the cable tubing into the room, spliced in a fber jack, set up the fiber modem, ran and spliced in the coax cable TV from the modem (the modem serves as the fiber to coax converter for DVB-C) and did all of this for free. The technician was even nice enugh to notice i am using my own router and phoned back to HQ to have the modem configured for dumb bridge mode with no routing. The only part of my own LAN network he touched is plugging the ethernet cable into my router to serve it the sweet new fiber juice from the modem. Technicaly you can call them to come fix your LAN network too, but they will charge you the technicans hours. They will only come fix for free any issues related to there own infrastructure (This means up to the modem since the ISP owns it and is lending it to you)

author: fordem
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 05:10:58 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 11, 2021, 04:36:24 pmThat might have been true back in the day when the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) was owned the by the customer - most fttp providers own the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) and lease it to the customer - the ONT more often than not also includes the NAT router, ethernet switch & wireless access point, so that the provider now has responsibility for everything other than the customers' compute device whether that be a phone, tablet or computer.This is what opens them up to the question of why can I get 300mbps on my iPad but not on my computer.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2021, 05:24:43 pm
content: Then the demarc is the ONT's LAN port or WiFi interface. But it can be in a grey area based on local regulations.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2021, 05:19:39 am
content: What cables already exist in the walls between the room with the PC and the room with the router? If it's a relatively new house, the phone lines might be run with CAT5 and would be trivial to convert to Ethernet. Coax can be used with MOCA adapters and old phone lines can be used with hacked Homeplug adapters. (Or use a pair of VDSL modems that can be programmed to connect to each other in adhoc mode, but that's basically a more expensive version of hacking Homeplug to run over phone lines.)In the off chance there's conduit between the rooms, installing cable is super easy!

author: fordem
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2021, 07:08:22 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 11, 2021, 05:24:43 pmThis does not change the fact that it is still the provider's responsibility to deal with the customer's complaint that they are not getting the speed they are paying for - I'm actually watching this play out right now, between my daughter and her provider - she knows the sort of throughput she can get in my house, and is going to push them until they deliver it in hers.So far they have instructed her to change the WiFi password, claiming that she's been hacked and has her neighbors mooching off of her WiFi, which, given the fact that she lives in a single family home several hundred feet from her closest neighbor is unlikely, they have installed additional access points in some sort of mesh WiFi system, and as of yesterday, disabled the ONT's internal access point on the pretext that it was causing "wireless interference".

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 12, 2021, 07:17:39 pm
content: Quote from: fordem on March 12, 2021, 07:08:22 pmClaimed speed is there, checked on ipad. Not their problem.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 13, 2021, 09:48:24 am
content: Quote from: fordem on March 12, 2021, 07:08:22 pmSince his iPad shown good speed test results means they are getting the speeds they pay for. So the ISP fulfilled their responsibility perfectly well. Unless the contract you signed with your ISP specifically mentions that they will provide networking infrastructure to all the computers in your house then they don't have to. Their responsibility is bringing the internet inside your house (and they might also charge an installation fee to do that).That being said if the ISP is trying to be seen in a good light against the competition they will generaly try to asist with some of the home networking. The technician might configure some of your existing routers and accesspoints if you ask them nicely, they will also generally provide advice on network upgrades to help you figure out what you need in order to get your network performing the way you want. But they will most certainly never give you free routers, access points, network cards or run ethernet cables all through the house for free.Maintaining a LAN network is a separate job for an IT technician. There are other companies that provide such services. This is typically used by small businesses that don't have their own IT technican or someone who knows enugh to do the work of one. They pay them monthly or per service call for them to come and fix any IT related issues for them and assist in buying new IT equipment.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 13, 2021, 03:11:47 pm
content: Regarding WiFi, no sane telco will give you any SLA for ISM bands. ISM bands have to be considered unreliable. If your WiFi works fine, be happy. There's no guarantee it will stay that way. Access points, WiFi routers, bluetooth, remote controls, video bridges and what have you share the same ISM bands. It's similar to CB radio in its heyday. For a reliable wireless service you need a licensed frequency, i.e. only used by your telco in your area.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2021, 06:00:01 am
content: Quote from: madires on March 13, 2021, 03:11:47 pmExcept that this is the latest customer grabbing craze in the UK at the moment it seems.The likes of sky and BT are guaranteeing speed or they'll give you a refund.It's clearly a loss maker for some customers, but it'll bring in more than a few extras to cover those losses.

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 19, 2021, 09:30:55 am
content: Do they *really* guarantee a speed to your (wireless) end user device? Any device?I would be very surprised if that is really the case.In germany, we recently (some years ago) got some legislations battling the always advertised "Up to" speeds. Now you can terminate your contract if the provider cannot at least deliver half of the promised "up to" speed to the router. But again, this is to the router. You can (or at least are supposed to be able to) use your own router, and already there this half speed clause does not apply anymore. This is only aplicable with the router you get from the provider.The unpredictable ISM bands are just one aspect here. How about an old PC with just an 100 MBit/s Ethernet card on a 500 Mbit/s connection? Or a single broken strand in your ethernet cabling causing it to fall back to 100 Mbit/s?

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 19, 2021, 01:31:57 pm
content: Quote from: Ranayna on May 19, 2021, 09:30:55 amIsn't that just what the bad telcos are trying to claim? Of course your router needs to be able to route/NAT with sufficient throughput, but it shouldn't matter if you have your own router or a Zwangsrouter (router forced upon you by the telco as part of the service).

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 19, 2021, 06:08:10 pm
content: Quote from: madires on May 19, 2021, 01:31:57 pmThing is that the NAT performance of a router is not simply X number of Mbits. Its common for a router to show great full link speed throughput in easy to route scenarios, but outright crash when presented with a particularly difficult routing scenario.An easy routing scenario is no firewall rules and 1 client, sending back and forth max sized packets at 1 server. Lots of cheep junk routers will do full max link speed on that. When you have 10 clients on a network talking to 1000s of different servers, constantly opening and closing TCP connections while sending large bursts of tiny packets will generally bring most non professional routers to there knees, making them drop to something like 10% of the max link throughput.One particularly nasty thing to do to a router is use a high throughput port scanner software like nmap and just let it rip without any speed limits. It can send millions of TCP requests trough a 1Gbit link. This is so violent on cheep routers that it causes some to crash and not recover until a reboot. I heard of a guy with a fast internet connection getting a call from there ISP when using it. He told them that he is port scanning and the IT tech on the other side was fine with it, but asked him to turn down the packet rate because he overloaded the ISPs backend networking equipment.And this is the problem with a lot of routers that ISPs give out. They work fine in the ideal scenario but often fall on there face in a more demanding one. Luckily my ISP is nice enough to flash my modem with a special "dumb modem only" firmware with all of the routing functionality stripped out, while i use my own more enterprise-ish grade MikroTik router to do my routing. It survives the worst case nmap scenario just fine with web browsing remaining functional for all the other clients, but the CPU and memory usage graphs on that router show that it is really really working hard(as in >100x typical resource usage)

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 19, 2021, 08:25:50 pm
content: Maybe US telcos have to change their "up to" marketing speak too. Frontier lied about internet speed, FTC says in post-net neutrality case:https://www.reuters.com/article/ftc-frontier-communications-speed/update-1-u-s-sues-frontier-communications-regarding-internet-speeds-filing-idUSL2N2N62E4

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 19, 2021, 09:31:48 pm
content: Quote from: Berni on May 19, 2021, 06:08:10 pmWe can discuss router architecture if you like.It's not hard to achieve 200 - 300 Mbps with a single core CPU around 600 - 800 MHz. And more and more SOHO router SoCs include hardware NAT, even inexpensive ones for 50 bucks. What do you mean by a "particularly difficult routing scenario"? A typical SOHO router has one gateway, maybe a few local networks and a few VPNs. Add IPv6 and you might have 10 or 20 routes. These can be easily handled by a software based router. For 200 bucks you get router with a dual-core ARM running at 1.x GHz. Plenty of performance for more complex firewall rules and high speed internet access. Much more than old and expensive CPU-based Cisco routers two decades ago, handling 150k routes with a few hundred MHz fast MIPS CPU.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 20, 2021, 05:18:17 am
content: Quote from: madires on May 19, 2021, 09:31:48 pmThe particularly difficult scenario is the high speed port scanning task. This is because a NAT has to keep track of who opened a connection to who. But there are routers that can't even keep up with simply having a lot of clients on the network. Routing happens on a packet by packet basis, so 100Mbit/s of 100 byte packets puts a way way more strain on a NAT than 100Mbit/s of 1500 byte packets.And yes you can get great throughput using just SoC chips, this is what pretty much all of the MikroTik routers use and they are bulletproof. More of the issue are the cheep consumer home networking solutions. The gear from people like Asus, TPLink, Dlink, Netgear.. etc tends to not handle more demanding routing scenarios while at the same time the firmware in general tends to be a crappy unstable mess that for some reason starts acting up after 3 months of uptime (I solved networking issues so many times by simply rebooting a cheap crappy router). But the routers that you get built into the modems, those tend to be even a step below those home solutions as they are the cheapest off brand piece of crap that the ISP could find on the market, since if they are giving them out for free they might as well spend as little money as possible on them. At least that is what i see ISPs giving out over here. Perhaps the ISPs from your area spend more money on quality modems.I convinced quite a few friends to spend the extra money on a SOHO grade router and they quickly noticed a big difference in how much more performant and stable there internet has become (before they blamed the ISP for crappy service).

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 20, 2021, 11:08:43 am
content: Quote from: Berni on May 20, 2021, 05:18:17 amI agree, if you're doing such things then you'll need a SOHO router with more performance. Cheap plastic boxes (slow CPU, not much RAM) won't hold up with that. BTW, a proper datasheet for a router will tell you also the maximum "packets per second" rating.Quote from: Berni on May 20, 2021, 05:18:17 amYep, the original firmwares of those are usually crappy. But in many cases you can crossgrade to an alternative firmware like OpenWRT which runs quite stable and also provides much better IPv6 support.Quote from: Berni on May 20, 2021, 05:18:17 amOver here the routers with built-in modem offered by telcos are the more expensive types. For DSL routers the standard feature set is VDSL super vectoring, DECT base station, VoIP ATA (2 FXO ports), WLAN, and capable of more than 250Mbps in any case. More or less a middle class FritzBox.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 20, 2021, 01:57:16 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 10, 2021, 01:18:03 amOccasionally the provider hardware is pretty good, if it's already 802.11ax buying an expensive wireless router won't necessarily get you much.