MX67C and painfully slow NBN

[DanCurtis]

My organisation has recently implemented an Enterprise Ethernet connection (1000Mb/s down, 1000Mb/s up) to our head office, and for the love of crumb-cake, it's embarrassingly slow.

We're using Cisco Meraki hardware at all of our sites - namely firewalls, switches, APs. Prior to moving our head office to our current site (late Feb, only a few weeks ago) we were running two FTTN links into the MX67C. This was running since long before I joined the organisation and all was fine.

When we relocated, we were running a single FTTN into the MX, and again, all fine.

We were informed late last week that our EE connection was ready to go. First things first, I ran a speed test on the FTTN so I could compare the before and after - 85 down, 33 up (pretty good for a link promising 100/40).

I configured WAN2 on the MX accordingly (static settings, VLAN 10, etc) and plugged the EE switch in. Lights, connection, action! Then I ran another speed test, and got 93 down, 39 up - a far cry from the 'up to gigabit' that was promised.

My ISP contacted me to see how I was going with the new link. Frankly, they were horrified when I told them the results I was getting.

I won't trouble you with the minutiae of my troubleshooting, but I'll summarise:

• With the FTTN on WAN1 and the EE on WAN2 - still slow.
• Set WAN2 as my primary link - still slow.
• Disconnected WAN1 - still slow.
• Swapped config between ports (so EE is on WAN1, FTTN is on WAN2) - still slow.
• Connecting the EE into a NetComm modem that I'd preconfigured for testing (and plugging a laptop into the NetComm), the EE link reported 698 down / 531 up.
• Connecting a LAN port on the NetComm into WAN1 on the MX - back to being slow. 

Now I know what you're all thinking - "oh, this simpleton has simply overlooked traffic shaping". Well, no, I haven't.

Right now, I've got the link speed for WAN1 set to 450Mb/s (as high as it will go), and WAN2 set to 100/40 (max speed of the line). I've got load balancing enabled, I've got WAN1 as my primary link.

And yet, I ran my speed test this morning and got 83 down / 10 up.

To summarise: I know that the EE link is doing what it should be doing. I can get fantastic speeds running a Gigabit internet link through a basic NetComm modem. But when running through my MX67, the link speed is getting throttled way the heck back, even though it's telling me it isn't.

Does the community have any thoughts on the matter?

[Bettencourt]

Hi Dan,

Are you able to disable the default traffic shaping rules in your MX, wait for the config to be up to date and give it a test?

Alternatively, you can also do this simple test.

1. Plugin a SWITCH between your ISP Edge and your MX 

2. Connect any laptop or desktop to that SWITCH via an ethernet cable (LAN) (SERVER)

3. Connect a different laptop or desktop to the MX LAN ports (CLIENT)

4. Run an iPerf test from a client on the MX LAN side to your machine on the "WAN" upstream

This will show you if the MX is throttling the speed or not.

iPerf guide step-by-step: https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting/Troubleshooting_C...

Good luck! 🤞

[RichardChen1]

Can you confirm your EE connection plan?  You mentioned only 100M down, but 1000M up.

I ran into a similar issue before, but was mainly due to duplex mismatch between MX and ISP.

However, even when the duplex issue was fixed, the MX still could not get the max speed due to the shaping.

IE: we got MX84 with a EE 800M service, but shaping on dashboard only support up to 500M.

Not sure if it is possible to disable uplink shaping in dashboard.

[DanCurtis]

Thanks for pointing that out... I've corrected my post.

Our NBN connection is 1000 down / 1000 up.

I know the MX67 only supports a maximum throughput of up to 450Mb/s (from what I understand that's a limitation on the hardware, not a throttling thing), so I'm aware that at the end of the day we won't be able to use the entire (let's be realistic here) ~700M that the EE provides.

We only have one traffic shaping rule in effect, and that's to do with cloud storage services (Drop Box, OneDrive, etc).

Not sure if this is relevant at all: just performed Dashboard throughput tests from the MX67C, and the two Meraki switches sitting behind it:

• MX67C: 666Mb/s throughput
• Switch 1: 5.2Mb
• Switch 2: 6.1Mb

With that said, I've done internet speed tests connected directly to all three (LAN port on MX, port on SW1, port on SW2), and the speeds are all pretty much identical - but all still very slow.

[RichardChen1]

Looks like an issue on the LAN segment of MX?

Try a different router?

[DanCurtis]

Unfortunately, using a different router is not an option. There's nothing sitting between the MX and the EE connection to replace.

Unless you're talking about replacing the MX itself...?

[PhilipDAth]

To recap one important fact; the Meraki speed test from the MX67 dashboard returns 666Mb/s throughput.

The issue is not between the MX and the ISP.  It's between the MX and the inside of the network.

Can you plug a notebook into the MX directly and repeat the speed test please.  Make sure you are testing a speedtest site near you.  Try an alternative site like https://www.nperf.com/.

Personally, I find speedtest.net not that reliable for connections over 200Mb/s.

If the notebook plugged direct into the MX has the same issue make sure both the notebook and MX port are set to auto/auto.

Is the ISP connection a normal routed segment on VLAN10, or is it using PPPoE.  It may be possible that you are having an MTU squeeze (but this is not so likely).

[DanCurtis]

The EE connection is on VLAN10.

Got my laptop plugged into port 5 on the MX67 (port 1 is the EE, port 2 is FTTN, ports 3 and 4 are uplinks to Switch 1 and Switch 2), and have rerun the speed test - and yes, it's till running in the vicinity of 90Mb.

Will start to investigate port speeds.

[cdb]

Hi Dan,

was the client machine only connected @ 100Mbps?

[Brendan-AU]

Digging up a very old thread... but we are experiencing an almost identical issue with our MX67C connected to Starlink. The MX67C seems to be somehow throttling the connected to a much lower speed.

Did you ever figure this one out?