dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
4925

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds to NinjaAction

Premium Member

to NinjaAction

Re: Residential 250 vs Business 250

I haven't seen any cases where WAN > LAN throughput has been an issue (just other 'features')
Mac Write
join:2004-10-13
New Westminster, BC

Mac Write to NinjaAction

Member

to NinjaAction
With the "Guest Access" does it eat form the same bandwidth cap?

Would love as much detail on this feature.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

The 2nd modem, is a 2nd modem, same speeds, so all traffic is separate, 125GB transfer on the account.

Or combined with your primary modem and 125GB added to your limit, as the way it is written.
kevinds

kevinds to NinjaAction

Premium Member

to NinjaAction
said by NinjaAction:

yes both bridged.

Same model router? Different? Or direct to the computer?
NinjaAction
join:2007-09-26
Calgary, AB

1 edit

NinjaAction

Member

said by kevinds:

said by NinjaAction:

yes both bridged.

Same model router? Different? Or direct to the computer?

Same except different. Let me try to explain...The tests were done within a VMware esx-i environment. On the ESX host I have two PFSense virtual appliances handling all routing. The Business connection was handled by PFSense appliance 1. The Residential connection was handled by PFSense Appliance 2.

Theres no reason why my testing PFSense appliance(2) should perform any worse than the PFSense in production(PFSense 1). They both run on the same host and have the same resources assigned to them (Dual CPU 1gig ram). And although they use different NIC's they are all the same model(Intel 82576 Chipset).

I was using the same vm to do the tests except when I ran the tests simultaneously. I would just switch the vm guest lan back and forth between the two networks. No cables were moved.

And now i'm using the Cisco in gateway mode and my main Business connection outperforms the guest connection in gateway mode.

Not sure whats up???

Heres a good late night test:

Guest connection instantly goes to 135 and flatlines for the test duration:



Main connection bounces around between 220 and 240:



Kinzy
@shawcable.net

Kinzy

Anon

there is only 2 possible solutions i see to troubleshoot what could be causing this.

1. swap the coax cables connected to each modem. i know you said you can't disconnect the business line. but you might have to in order to fully troubleshoot

2. replace the modem with lower speeds.

3. make sure both modems are grabbing the same number of downstream and upstream channels. and also make sure the modulation being used is the same. should be 256QAM for downstream and 64QAM for upstream. i believe that my modem has only grabbed 2 upstream channels when there was 4 available. dont know why but its possible. i would also put my hand over the modems to see if one is running hotter then the other.

this is a very interesting thread tho.

im very curious if this if the problem is fixable or if its caused by some sort of shaping. cause if its not fixable i dont know what else it would be.

one day if res 250 is available here and i want it. would not be happy if i had this same problem.
ravenchilde
join:2011-04-01

ravenchilde to NinjaAction

Member

to NinjaAction
said by NinjaAction:

Anyone know how the WAN->LAN throughput is like on these cisco's in gateway mode?

I've hit 220+ mbps in gateway mode

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

2 edits

Baud1200 to NinjaAction

Member

to NinjaAction
said by NinjaAction:

PFSense

LRO not functioning on Intel NIC producing asymmetric results?

There's a few issues with pfSense and the Intel NIC's atm as they are using a driver which is extremely outdated.
In several testing scenarios i saw exactly what you are seeing on a 250 package and was able to remedy it with changes to pfSense.

»forum.pfsense.org/index. ··· 7.0.html

In short, try with "Disable hardware large receive offload" selected in pfSense, if that's a no go, replace the old (2.3.1) driver with the current 2.3.10, if issue persists also disable LRO in this setup.

Alternatively you can rebuild your pfSense with the 2.1.1 development snapshot, which includes the 2.3.10 driver, bear in mind you again may need to disable hardware LRO in pfSense (and reboot).
NinjaAction
join:2007-09-26
Calgary, AB

1 edit

NinjaAction

Member

But PFSense is installed on vmware esx-i so it is using the vmware virtual NIC driver and Vmware handles the driver with the physical NIC. Or at least thats the way I envision it.

From the PFSense install guide for esx-i:
quote:
Note that for each NIC you can also select an Adapter type. Different adapter types may give better or worse performance (and some may not work at all) but you’ll have to study that elsewhere. To get started, choose the dependable E1000 type for each adapter. Make sure that Connect at Power On is checked and click Next.
I chose the "Dependable E1000" for all my network adapters
NinjaAction

NinjaAction to Kinzy

Member

to Kinzy
Later Tonight when my business traffic slows to idle i'm going to swap cables on the two modems and see what happens.

I've also just made a snapshot of my PFSense Production environment and i'm going to bring that online at the same time and plug my guest modem into my now current, soon to be old, PFSense Production environment.

Gonna knock down my 57 ipsec VPN tunnels in the process . God I hope it all comes back. Don't say I don't do anything for you guys lol. But in all seriousness I need to test this type of disaster anyways.

Hopefully we'll be able to prove its either my infrastructure, or Shaws modem or Bandwidth shaping from doing this test.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

If both are in bridge mode, I would suggest trying just swapping the modems with each other...
NinjaAction
join:2007-09-26
Calgary, AB

NinjaAction

Member

Not anymore. If you read the thread closely you'll see that originally i was comparing my Business 250 Connection to my Residential 250 Connection(both bridged).
However I have since cancelled the Residential connection and now have a Business Guest Connection which I am forced to run in gateway mode. However this guest connection exhibits the same slower speeds as my residential connection did.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

Ok, sorry, I wasn't sure if you added the guest connection (3rd modem)

I've got Business 100 and the guest modem, they both experience full speed.

Did they just change the profile on the old residential modem? Or did you get a different modem?
NinjaAction
join:2007-09-26
Calgary, AB

NinjaAction

Member

Same modem, should have got a new one......doh

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

Baud1200 to NinjaAction

Member

to NinjaAction
Would still encourage you to try with hardware LSO disabled in pfSense, considering the work you are looking at with any other troubleshooting selecting this checkbox and rebooting is the least you can do at this point.
NinjaAction
join:2007-09-26
Calgary, AB

NinjaAction

Member

said by Baud1200:

Would still encourage you to try with hardware LSO disabled in pfSense, considering the work you are looking at with any other troubleshooting selecting this checkbox and rebooting is the least you can do at this point.

Looks like it is already disabled. Did a search and I guess when PFSense detects vmware this gets disabled automatically. Oh well, worth a shot.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds to NinjaAction

Premium Member

to NinjaAction
said by NinjaAction:

should have got a new one......doh

Probably the next step to try

On the plus side, next day service calls
NinjaAction
join:2007-09-26
Calgary, AB

NinjaAction

Member

Well I swapped the cables on the modems. No luck, everything remains the same as expected.

The thing draws a straight line on every speed test at 135mbit. Which is also exactly half what the 250mbit should be according to Kinzy's math.

Gotta be the modem.

The Main Connection is still 200+.

On a positive note all my VPN tunnels came back within 60sec. Love this pfsense stuff. I'm not an IT guy by any stretch, and PFSense is so easy.....it has simplified my business tremendously.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

pfSense will be an upcoming project for me too, as soon as I can figure out the time to figure it out

ShawBus50
@shawcable.net

ShawBus50 to NinjaAction

Anon

to NinjaAction
I am only on Shaw Business 50.

However I do have the second "guest" WiFi modem and whenever I do an actual Shaw Speed Test It shows me at the 100mbps plan. Even when using my main connection it does show my plan at 100mbps. I only max at 50 on each connection.

With the guest (additional Wi-Fi modem) some how shows my plan at 100mbps on Shaw Speed Test. I never see above about 52mbps but it is very consistent between the two.

I would love to test this setup on 250. However seeing as I am rated as 100mbps on 50mbps+50mbps WiFi I bet it is not worth it. 100mbps might be a worthwhile trial.

What is Shaw's current bandwidth per node?

Kinzy
@shawcable.net

Kinzy

Anon

current bandwidth on 8 channel nodes which about 90% of people are on is 304Mbit down and 56Mbit up. before i was on 8 downstream channels i was on 6. so some areas are probably still on 6 which would be 228Mbit

also if your paying for shaw business 100 i think you have a problem. if your not its probably just an error. as if your paying for business 50 with the extra modem you should get 52/3 on each modem. i think this problem doesnt apply to the 50 and 100 plans tho. my guess would be thats its isolated to 250. which is why we cant seem to figure it out. there is probably almost no people that have had access to 250mbit business, residential, and the business guest modem. imagine if he didnt have the biz connection and just residential. he probably would have just thought thats all he could get..... wonder how many people actually have had the same or a similar problem where they dont get the bandwidth even though its there

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds to ShawBus50

Premium Member

to ShawBus50
said by ShawBus50 :

shows my plan at 100mbps on Shaw Speed Test

I think because Shaw recently increased the speeds on all plans lately, that test is showing the next plan up
rotohoto
join:2012-03-31
canada

rotohoto to Kinzy

Member

to Kinzy
said by Kinzy :

said by kevinds:

...

136+238 is not possible thats 374mbps. and although you said there is 320mbps available. there is really only 304.

That's right, 304mbps is the real world max per 8 channels, but it's entirely possible to have more than 8 channels running per node.
It's also possible to have different service classes use different groups of channels. ie, residential customers use one set of 8 channels, business customers use a different set of 8.
That way you're giving your business customers a better service without technically throttling or shaping anyone.

No idea if Shaw is doing that, but I have seen it done elsewhere. Given how slow their "phase 2" rollout is going, I wouldn't be surprised if they are still only running 8 channels per node in most areas.
Just throwing it out as a possibility.
rotohoto

rotohoto

Member

The modem doesn't need to ignore the channels, it just needs to be told which channels it's supposed to end up on. That can be done inside the docsis config file it gets when it comes online.

So for example, if you are an ISP and you wanted all docsis2 residential customers on the 111mhz downstream, and all docsis2 business customers on the 117mhz downstream, you just add that to the config for each class of service.

So if a d2 residential modem first finds the 117mhz downstream, it will start to come online, look at the config file it gets and say "oh, looks like I'm supposed to be on 111mhz, but I'm currently at 117mhz"
Then the modem resets and knows to start listening at 117mhz, bypassing the 'hunting' phase that normally takes place.
Same thing applies to d3, voice only modems, or just about anything else you can think of. Basically all changes to your modem's behaviour can be done in the config file.

And yes, d2 modems are very poor for sharing multiple channels.
If they all initially come online at the same frequency, the CMTS can do some basic load balancing and force them to use others.... But that's still not ideal as every time a D2 modem changes to a different downstream channel, it needs to go offline and re-register, creating a noticeable interruption.
So yeah... for load balancing/avoiding congestion, D3 is always superior, and the more channels the better. Even when you're at the point where the channels being added far surpass your provisioned speed.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

The same way that DOCSIS2 has access to 8 channels now, it will only use one at a time, and frequently, from what I have seen, switches between them

The Cisco modem will use any 8 channels in a row, but may move up and down in the available space.

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

2 edits

Baud1200 to NinjaAction

Member

to NinjaAction
Almost scared to post it, so that it doesn't get nerfed or downgraded somehow.
This is the Unlimited 250 residential that you had to be grandfathered into to keep... please bear in mind that this personal setup is highly tweaked and modified from the basic Shaw install...
@NinjaAction, note as mentioned before in this thread this same connection only runs at 130Mbps download with pfSense with stock (3 year old) Intel NIC drivers and no changes to pfSense default config.



I noticed a few months ago they removed all of the Unlimited 250 plans from the website, and are re introducing only Limited 250 plans (1TB cap)in select areas only. These new "revised" plans cost almost double what the original Unlimited 250 did. Here is what their website says is available now for my current address that is actually running the unlimited, its not even shown as an option now.

    Broadband 250
    Up to
    250 Mbps download
    1 TB/Month data transfer
    Access to Shaw Go WiFi
    Complimentary WiFi modem
    Sorry, service not available
 

Have they removed the plan because their infrastructure is currently so shabby that it can't handle many of the 250 on the same nodes?

Or

Have they noticed the competition is not offering the 250 speed so they removed the initial price plans and will now add them back at double the price and with added data limits since there is no current competition in this range.

Or a little of both perhaps... [Ouch!]
Baud1200

3 edits

Baud1200

Member

said by Kinzy :

what tweaks have u made?

Will try and sum up the basics, was a long drawn out process to get it working properly. In short I am using really high quality NIC's and have optimized everything specifically for those cards, especially on the router. Also plenty of re-wiring to eliminate any slowdown in physical connections.

1. New underground line to house from drop box. Best of luck harassing Shaw for this...it was done here a couple years ago after Shaw techs themselves reported the old line needed replacement.
2. 100% rewired patch / LAN cable with Cat 6 & RG6 Coax to modem.
3. 3 way Shaw supplied splitter on the end of newly run line, Cisco DCP3825 modem (Bridged) attached on first of 3 connections with RG6 coax. No attenuators or in line boosters currently in use.
4. Cisco modem, network hardware and firewall stored on rack in climate controlled cold room, along with the UPS's they run with (needed with dirty Edmonton power).

When adding a firewall, I had one basic requirement, and that was not to notice it at all in terms of negated performance or added latency. The speedtest was done through this firewall so it seems to have met this requirement.

pfSense 2.1 Router:
Dell r300 Quad 2.6, 12G ECC
Intel ET2 Quad port Server NIC, same NIC's used throughout network.

PfSense 2.1 needed work to optimize it for those NIC's. It was necessary to compile Intel 2.3.10 drivers for the older version of freebsd (credit for that goes to "Finger79" on the pfSense forum for that). Next loader.conf was tuned with the below Intel driver specific parameters. The updated driver with the OS tuned for it made a notable difference. There is currently a pfSense 2.1.1 in development with the new Intel 2.3.10 driver, barring any hitch ups it should make this process a lot simpler.

hw.igb.rx_process_limit="-1"
hw.igb.rxd="2048"
hw.igb.txd="2048"
hw.igb.max_interrupt_rate="32000"
hw.igb.fc_setting=0

Hardware LRO also has to be disabled in pfSense.

Now all that's left is to hope Shaw has enough channels bonding in your location to make use of it

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

said by Coki :

the real issue is the fact that when the downstream comes in so hot. it makes your modem have to work harder for the same upstream levels, well basically your tx levels on your modem go up.)

It is actually reverse of this.

'Hot' downstream usually results in a lower Tx
The lower the downstream, usually the higher the Tx level.

Adding a 3 db attenuator will cause your downstream/Rx signal to go down by 3db and the upstream/Tx level to go up by 3db.
NetwX0
join:2007-01-02
Medicine Hat

NetwX0 to NinjaAction

Member

to NinjaAction
I have residential 250 currently. Going to try and upgrade BB50 to 250 at my business just to do some testing. This is very interesting.

Edit: Also have the second Cisco WiFi account.

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

Baud1200

Member

said by Coki :

... and the modem mods, i wish i could mod mine, but shaw would probably get mad

Ya, unfortunately I don't think anyone smart enough to have modded one would post it here knowing the repercussions.