Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

Networking and broadband talkabout. Need help with that new router or setting up a network?
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FlyingPenguin
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Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Comcast bumped me up to 120/15. WOOT! Up from 80/10.

I hadn't noticed because I run a router with QoS and it was capped at the old speeds. Heard from a neighbor they had increased it so I disabled QoS and got a nice surprise.

The bummer is that my old Asus RT-N16 running Tomato router firmware, can't seem to handle anything over 70 mbps with QoS enabled. Seems to max out the router's CPU. With QoS disabled, it lets it through just fine, but then you have to worry about buffer bloat (don't want a Steam download hogging the whole bandwidth and stalling a Netflix video for the wife!).

So I ordered a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X which Steve Gibson has been raving about. For $55 bucks this is a commercial grade router that is fully programmable and can do all kinds of crazy things like WAN binding (multiple ISPs combined through the router ), and network isolation, and it has a very sophisticated "smart" QoS feature.

They're famous for being arcane to configure, but there's lots of really good tutorials out there (video and written).

https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-x/
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Losbot
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Re: Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

Post by Losbot »

Let me know what you think of it. I've been tempted to get one.
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psypher
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Re: Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

Post by psypher »

I still run pfSense for my firewall, but I do love Ubiquiti products. I have a 24 port POE managed switch from them as well as an HD PRO AP. I recommend you get their hardware controller so you don't have to run the controller as software. Also their support so far has been excellent.
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FlyingPenguin
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Re: Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

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Nice router, but it is a bit arcane to setup. Fortunately it now comes with several wizards to pre-configure it for common uses. It's also a bit confusing because you initially connect your PC to it via the ETH0 port which is later used as the WAN port (all ports are completely configurable).

You definitely want to upgrade the firmware first off since they've added a lot of new wizards recently. My router was 3 versions behind.

Most people will use the "WAN+2LAN" wizard which configures it as a standard home gateway router with 1 WAN and 4 LAN ports. I used the "LAN+2LAN2" wizard which configures it as a home gateway with TWO segregated network segments on different IPs, so I can use one for the main network, and the other for untrusted IoT crap.

There are also wizards for load balancing, which is a nice feature that allows you to have two WANs (like if you have both a DSL and a Cable modem and it load balances between them, and if one fails the other picks up the slack). I originally researched this router for that reason because I had a client that wanted ultra reliable internet, and I had nearly talked him into doing this.

Port forwarding menu is pretty similar to any other router you've ever used.

I enabled the "Smart Queue" feature which is their version of QoS (and prevents buffer bloat) and seems to work very well, and is easy to setup compared to QoS on Tomato or DDWRT. You just configure the up/down bandwidth caps for 95% of your actual bandwidth, and it does the rest. QoS prevents any one device on the network from hogging all the bandwidth and choking everyone else off. You get slightly reduced max bandwidth but it's worth it. Not fun having the wife scream at you when you're downloading a torrent because her Netflix is freezing.

Here's my test on DSL Reports Speed Test showing an "A" grade for buffer bloat. My old Tomato router, even with QoS configured properly, never got batter than a "B" result for buffer bloat.

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Losbot
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Re: Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

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So is it primarily a router or firewall? Any good as a firewall?
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FlyingPenguin
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Re: Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

Post by FlyingPenguin »

It can actually be programmed as anything, even a smart switch. I'm using it as a router. You could certainly use it as a firewall I suppose. It does have a firewall.

Be warned, though, that even though it has gigabit ports on it, it doesn't support full gigabit throughput, which is okay if you're using it as a gateway router connected to a gigabit switch.
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Nuby1Canuby
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Re: Nice bandwidth bump from Comcast!

Post by Nuby1Canuby »

FlyingPenguin wrote:Comcast bumped me up to 120/15. WOOT! Up from 80/10.
That's great to hear. Now you'll be able to download the Black Ops 3 custom maps a bit faster.
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