-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 8:57 PM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Moving 15 GB ... in 1970
>a) the bandwidth your plan claims does not factor in the speed at which the
>rest of the internet will deliver bits to you (even assuming the >ISP isn't
>exaggerating), my experience has been that it is *rare* (not impossible) for
>actual real world services on the internet to actually >feed you at
>significant fractions of gigabit speeds (often around 30Mbps) even on my
>supposedly gigabit fiber service. About 5% of the >time I'm surprised by
>something faster. Speed test sites are the exception. I suspect shenanigans
>between the ISPs and the speed test sites.
Actually this isn’t true. I have a gigabit service out on the Oregon Coast
with Spectrum Cable and I can regularly get gigabit speeds to many sites on the
internet.
There are, however, many problems most people have with getting gigabit speeds:
1) The ISP-supplied cable modems and routers are designed for reliability in
harsh environments - people's garages, basements, closets that are overheated,
etc. Because of this they have no cooling fans, cooling is entirely by
convection and because of that the clock speeds are typically greatly reduced.
For example the top of the line Netgear Nighthawk series only runs at 1 gigabit
clock speed. That kills throughput.
2) The Linux networking stack is INCREDIBLY inefficient and virtually all of
these devices - all enduser ISP routers, cablemodems, etc. - are built around
modified versions of OpenWRT. Basically the manufacturer takes the OpenWRT
distribution, throws away the GUI and replaces it with their own, removes the
chip drivers and substitutes their own, and shuts down telnet/ssh. OpenWRT has
a very slow networking stack.
3) Most users don't use their own router they use the ISP router. If they used
a high-end Enterprise router like a Cisco on their DSL or Cable modem and
configured the modem into "bridged" mode then they would be able to get gigabit
speeds. Or if they used a FreeBSD based PC with 2 ethernet cards in it they
would also get gigabit speeds. But instead they take the cheap way out which
is to use the ISP supplied "free modem"
4) Most home users nowadays are using wifi to connect to their DSL/Cablemodems
and wifi radio standards don't allow for much more than 100Mbt in the typical
home environment (and please spare me the histrionics about the "new" wifi
standards that deliver gigabit speeds since that only happens when you are 6
feet within the transmitter. People are idiots when it comes to wifi)
Of all the manufacturers out there, Broadcom is the one who actually wrote a
completely closed-source, proprietary address translation module that
essentially replaces the Linux stack. THAT module is lightning fast and you
CAN get gigabit speeds with low CPU clock speeds. But it is only for the
Broadcom Northstar SoC based devices.
By the way, the EU is way, way ahead of the US with gigabit rolled out to the
home. Broadcom wrote their "hardware NAT module" (that's what they call it) to
compete in that market.
Ted
