Gigabit With Own Router as Primary = Slower Speeds?

I've been using an eBay purchased quantum router in bridge mode with a Unifi USG as the primary for over a year with 300/300 service. The real-life speeds were fairly close. I just upgraded to gigabit service and ditched the FiOS tv package yesterday and my wifi speeds dropped to 60 Mbps from 150-200 Mbps. Before I spend a few days with multiple Verizon techs. I was hoping someone else may have a solution. Ultimately I want to replace the quantum with a moca adapter but I can't until I figure this out. Thanks for any insight.

Accepted answers

smith6612

The USGs can do Gigabit speeds as long as Smart Queues and IPS/IDS are disabled and the L2 / Hardware Acceleration features are enabled. If any of those features are on, the USG 3P will cap off at 80-120Mbps, and the USG Pro 4 will cap off around 300-400Mbps. They have old MIPS processors and can't push traffic like their newer Dream Machines can, which do all of the routing in software on ARM processors.

The other thing to note is, if OP is running a speed test from the UniFi Controller, even if the USG itself is delivering 1Gbps of traffic, the speed test in the UniFi Controller runs off of the USG. The USG's CPU will bottleneck the speed test at the same speeds you'd expect to see if you didn't have hardware acceleration enabled.

A couple things do come to mind though.

1: Make sure the USG is fully updated. Firmware as far back as two years ago had issues with UDP traffic, and some of those issues also cascaded to TCP Traffic.

2: Turn off MSS Clamping. Not needed on FiOS as long as your network is already at an MTU of 1500 end to end.

3: Make sure Hardware Offload, Layer 2 Blocking Offload, and Offload Scheduler are all enabled.

4: If the USG is configured using Class A blocks on NAT, configure for Class B instead (old bug a while ago caused slow speeds if using Class As in some situations) and see if performance improves.

5: Log into the USG's CLI and run a `show interfaces ethernet detail` and look at each of your Interfaces. Make sure you do not see overrun, errors, or carrier collisions being reported for TX and RX on any interface.

I have a USG 3P on Gigabit DOCSIS and it handles the connection fine. A friend of mine has a Dream Machine Pro on FiOS and gets the full 940/940.

All comments

Cang_Household

That's strange. Upgrading broadband speed should not affect any layer 2 device behind the ONT. Are you sure that you did not make modifications to your network?

I am using a G1100 as an access point/switch/MoCA adapter, I am getting 350+Mbps on 5GHz a floor below and 500Mbps+ on ethernet.

semitech

No changes were made. I've tried rebooting the quantum and the Unifi but no luck.

dslr595148

Did you switch from moca to ethernet?

REFs

https://www.dslreports.com/faq/15990

https://www.dslreports.com/faq/15991

If not since you do not have FIOS TV, please do it.

semitech

There is ethernet from the ONT to the router. I'm now wondering do I need to put the quantum back as primary first, maybe reboot it so that the upgrade to gigabit "takes place". When I made the switch my router, a Unifi USG was primary and the quantum was in bridge mode. This is just a guess. When I connect hard wired to the quantum or the unifi I gett 500/500 ish not gigabit but I don't think I'll ever get the advertised speeds. I'm grasping at straws at this point and am dreading a call to verizon.

Cang_Household

@semitech wrote:
I'm now wondering do I need to put the quantum back as primary first, maybe reboot it so that the upgrade to gigabit "takes place".

No, I don't think so. Gigabit upgrade does not affect the router behind the ONT. Gigabit upgrade only modifies the transmission rate between the Optical Line Terminal in the regional distribution center and the Optical Network Terminal on your premise. For the speed test, make sure your device is capable of handling encoding and decoding 1000Mbps of network traffic. I use Google Drive uploading and downloading over 1GB files (such as surveillance footage) to test the speed. I see my actual throughput through Windows Task Manager. Sometimes the speed test websites themselves have high traffic volume and low throughput. The recent "Google Drive Speed Test" shows mine is 800/783 Mbps at 100% CPU. If your CPU reaches full capacity during speed test, it seems your device is bottlenecking the throughput.

semitech

I'm downloading a video and the cpu stayed around 50-60 % , the throughput went as high 54mbps but stayed mostly around 30mbps.