FTTH 8GB Download... interest ?

[Fuzy]

Hello, my ISP offers me an 8Gbps connection in DL. I already have a 2.5 Gbps connection in DL and I struggle to load above 200 MB/s on the game loading servers despite an 11th generation I5 and an nvme in pci 4.0... Is there really a Interest today in starting on this type of connection... apart from doing speedtests?

Do you know of file download servers that can compete with this type of connection so that I can test maximum performance in DL?

[Bert]

I will be getting 8Gbit once my fiber line is installed however my only choices are 1000/1000 or 8000/8000 lol. Hopefully in the spring sometime.

 

Suppose I have to build my own router as well or something that is 10Gbit capable.

 

On my home net I can transfer 10Gbit easy but as you say things like drives and PC memory etc start to form bottlenecks at that speed.

[Fuzy]

Definitely an ISP commercial argument for an individual!

Apart from having overpriced equipment... and even with that these speeds are not yet accessible for download!

What max speed do you get on a download on steam or battle.net with 8Gbps (What PC configuration)

A 10Gbps (local) intranet network is easy and less and less expensive now... you still have to use it. For me it is always faster to transport an external ssd from one device to another at home!

[Bert]

Depends on really.

 

The 8Gbit we are supposed to get comes with a router that has 2.5Gbit ports so you can't use 8Gbit for a single device. That's why it's offered cheap as they think that nobody is able to use 8Gbit anyway. (I think XGS-PON can supply 10Gbit to a node so you would be almost saturating the entire node) But offcourse we won't be happy with that  

 

10Gbit infrastructure is not that cheap yet though. If you buy the equipment new. You need a 10Gbit card in every PC or use mainboards that have 10Gbit included ($$$$). 10Gbit capable switches are also on the pricy side. I went with a switch that supports both 10Gbit and 2.5 Gbit as I think 2.5Gbit will gain more traction for home use, you can see PC mainboards utilizing this a lot more over 10Gbit and things like NAS devices as well. It's only a matter of time before TV's, consoles and streaming devices will switch to 2.5Gbit. Reason is that it's a lot more power efficient over 10Gbit. 10Gbit switches need active cooling so are usually on the noisy / power hungry side.

 

Then depending on the usecase, both your PC and your other sources need to be able to go up to 10Gbit speeds. Most NAS devices for home will not make this, hence why 2.5Gbit is rising in popularity. My servers are Intel Xeon with PCIE 3.0 NVME drives in RAID so they have no issue keeping up. And workstation is AMD 5950X with PCIE 4.0 drive, Sabrent Rocket. For a single file, say copy a 20GB DVD file, takes 20 seconds to copy, 100 GB takes under 2 minute, can't beat that with walking around with a external SSD.

 

Also for latency it makes a difference. At 1Gbit, local latency is about 1ms on LAN. At 10Gbit, latency is 0.25ms. While it does not sound like much, working on network shares feels like the drives are physically in your PC, they are much more responsive then on 1Gbit. The real reason for wanting the 8Gbit WAN over 1Gbit WAN though is that I have a second place in another country that already has 1Gbit FTTH (and they are slowly scaling up to 2Gbit), and use a site to site wireguard VPN to access the same server, where as the internet connection at my place where the server is has a low 40mbit upload now that is holding back transfers. For connections over distance it's actually better to have some overhead as latency quickly kills speed.

 

Also what helps loads for big file transfers is loads of RAM. When you download something, the NIC will write to memory and then to the drive. Windows utilizes 10% memory for this. So for a PC with 32 GB memory, it's full at 3GB and then you are most likely to see drops in transfer speed as memory needs to be flushed to the drives. Windows Server uses 50% so a server with 64 or 128 GB memory that can be used for 50% is more likely giving better results. Also for slower PC's RSS (recieve side scaling) needs to be enabled so incoming transfers will be distributed over multiple cores rather than 1 core. And something that is an issue with current retail PC's is the number of PCI-E lanes. Most have 20 so you use 4x for the SSD boot drive and 16x for the Graphics card. So that means that the 10Gbit NIC is generally located on the chipset / south bridge hogging up 4x PCI-E lanes. In reality for fastest transfers you would want both the NIC connected to the CPU and also a 2nd SSD drive connected to the CPU but that brings you into the territory of workstation PC's, Intel Xeon and AMD Threadripper.

 

Going above 1Gbit bandwidth for sustained transfers actually poses a lot of bottlenecks.

 

 

[crunkjuice1]

Is there anything out there entertainment wise that can use that? Streaming services and video games all going at the same time don’t even tickle my Google fiber 1000/1000 connection. 

[Fuzy]

@crunkjuice1 A download on battle.net for me, among other things:

(On my 5Gbps line shared box ISP ethernet 2.5 + 1 + 1 Gbps + Wifi 0.5 Gbps)

@BertMy ISP offers a other box with an sfp+ port

A simple converter does the job...

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B08L98G87X/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=ADD8GDUWB40L7&th=1

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B01DCZCQTC/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?smid=ADD8GDUWB40L7&psc=1

But as said above, I don't think I'll get it's theoretical speed, so no real interest!

 

 

[crunkjuice1]

IMPRESSIVE! consoles have a lot of catching up to do in the network department! On 1 gig the highest I ever see on a full game download or update is 500 and spurts of 600. Again my household has five consoles and a handful of streaming devices. 

[TrayDay]

At the very least, 10 years, before upgrading the consoles to do so. WIFI 6 is implemented with current consoles. On average for households, Globally, is below 500mbps. If there was a viewpoint on where they would upgrade to. It would perhaps be 2.5gbps for consoles.

[Fuzy]

The Xbox serie s goes up in DL maximum at 700mbps for me in off-peak hours (I think it's the max capacity delivered by the xbox servers)

But given the small price difference between 2.5Gbps and 1Gbps ethernet ports now, it's sure to become the new standard on most next-gen mid-range home devices and routers...

Will the download servers follow, I'm not sure...!

[Newfie]

On 12/29/2022 at 5:18 AM, crunkjuice1 said:

Is there anything out there entertainment wise that can use that? Streaming services and video games all going at the same time don’t even tickle my Google fiber 1000/1000 connection. 

No, it’s great if you host servers but for general use with a property with APs the best on Wireless side is a 2.5 connection and then the rest is a rack system and switches which will be expensive and you are still limited on the WiFi side.

[Fuzy]

Wifi ?!!!.....

Why .....!!!?

[Newfie]

On 12/31/2022 at 6:57 PM, Fuzy said:

Wifi ?!!!.....

Why .....!!!?

VR to start with and multiple clients that use high resources. People think that if one device gets say 500 that’s great but I can swallow that up with VR. The days of cable are fast disappearing and as we head towards WiFi 7 while it will limit coverage on a single router due to the increase in frequency the latency will be very low. 6Ghz already helps with lower latency and less noise and is more than a match for cable on a one client connection at max QAM. I’ve not gamed on cable for ages but I have a fairly complex system with multiple APs running at correct outputs so clients are dedicated to various APs at low noise levels.

Like most things tech moves forward, people use more smart devices, automation starts to increase, client devices increase, an ever evolving eco system that relies on wireless technology. it’s why Companies like Ruckus, Cisco, Netgear, Unifi, Asus, Juniper and all the rest invest heavily and why Mikrotek, Broadcom, intel and Qualcomm invest millions into research to increase the productivity of wireless technology to these companies. 
 

so an 8Gb connection might be great for a company who has servers or has a large client base on WiFi where they need that to  handle the load like at an Apple conference (will have far more spread out on various outlet platforms to handle client base)or university but a house hold property gains nothing and even more so for gamers who use a small amount of data to game on say COD and at that point no one is going to be using a simple router to handle networks that might have dozens of APs around a site. Hell I can get 10Gb with Swiss here if I want to pay the obscene amount and that’s up and down but it’s pointless as I would need to spend a good couple of grand on switches and APs which are simply not needed for my use. One of the APs I have can handle 600 clients and that’s a total over kill but it covers the 6E and I need that as it’s compatible with the rest of my system.

crunk asked and that’s the honest truth, a gig is plenty for households, pair with a good system and it covers your needs easily. Downloading from a single source that does not limit is not a good example of its use. 



 

 

 

[Fuzy]

I am talking about a particular offer at €50 per month that is not symmetrical.
Moreover, the 6th wifi remains limited even on a 1Gbps connection... 700/700 Mbps from what I have been able to test.
If wifi 7 keeps its promises in terms of latency, it will not be standardized before 2025 or even 2026. Ethernet or sfp+ still has room for this type of 8Gps connection for individuals who do not want to break the bank!
A mikrotik sfp+ switch today costs 150€!

[Newfie]

True draft WiFi 7 will take a while but draft 3 WiFi 6 routers did well and they appeared in 2019.

Yes 6E is limited on a gig connection but 6E was designed not only to increase throughput but lower levels of interference and lower latency so a VR for example matched to a PC with a compatible card gives you freedom of an open environment rather than having wires suspended from the ceiling. 
6E can handle more clients too due to the increase in throughput. Yes you could say that the AP needs to match that but 6E has far more usage than just throughput. 
6E will be very useful for high density environments and that’s really what it’s about. Unfortunately most tend to think it’s all about speed but it’s not. It’s why 2.4Ghz and even 5Ghz suffer, more so because end users use max output in the belief it’s best when in fact the noise level increases and a client see a strong signal but has poor communication which is why it’s never a good idea to run at max transmit unless the environment suits it.

 

You would need to check the throughput of the switch to its outputs. As we know most switch’s don’t always share  the full  input to output,  That bumps the price up and I would prefer a managed switch with a lot more than 10Gb internal movement and have a good degree of control. Layer 3 at least. Mine is with 4 10g sfp ports with 320Gbs switch capacity coupled with 48 port max 2.5Gb which is where my APs are connected too. Unfortunately the routers switches are limited to 1Gb but it has a 10g sfp port which is connected to the switch. 
But once again a normal house hold will see no difference and a gamer even less. I think it’s around £500 a month here for the big package. 

 

 

 

[Fuzy]

46 minutes ago, Newfie said:

£500 a month

Ok at this price it's dedicated business!

Or the technician who does the installation is Britney Spears herself...🙃

[Newfie]

2 minutes ago, Fuzy said:

Ok at this price it's dedicated business!

Or the technician who does the installation is Britney Spears herself...🙃

U.K. jolly expensive round my neck of the woods as I live in one of the most expensive areas in the U.K. I think the local town came out as the most expensive place in the U.K. Ridiculous prices and full of bankers and financial types. 

[Fuzy]

1 hour ago, Newfie said:

U.K. jolly expensive round my neck of the woods as I live in one of the most expensive areas in the U.K. I think the local town came out as the most expensive place in the U.K. Ridiculous prices and full of bankers and financial types. 

I sympathize 😅

 

In France, the state largely finances the routing of fiber in rural areas in order to allow as many people as possible access to FTTH, even if the calendars are not necessarily respected... Rates or packages for individuals are very attractive and do not change from one technology to another, regardless of where you live. ISPs are profitable by offering subscriptions to paid services in addition to the offer (audio and video streaming and scheming) For example, my parents pay the same price as me for 8Mbps adsl access with the same ISP box offer. (I have 5Gbps DL for 40€ + IPTV + Landline) According to the organization that takes care of the census, the whole of France will be eligible for FTTH in 2030...!?... ISPs also offer 4G boxes (soon 5G) for white areas in the same price range with random speeds (depending on the distance from the tower). In view of the prices for very high speed access in the world; I really feel privileged. To believe that the ISP actors are too profiteering and abuse this power which should be a right for the 8 billion humans!

[Bert]

On 12/29/2022 at 7:11 PM, Fuzy said:

@crunkjuice1 A download on battle.net for me, among other things:

(On my 5Gbps line shared box ISP ethernet 2.5 + 1 + 1 Gbps + Wifi 0.5 Gbps)

@BertMy ISP offers a other box with an sfp+ port

A simple converter does the job...

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B08L98G87X/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=ADD8GDUWB40L7&th=1

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B01DCZCQTC/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?smid=ADD8GDUWB40L7&psc=1

But as said above, I don't think I'll get it's theoretical speed, so no real interest!

 

 

 

I like this.

 

There is a Nokia ONT that works with a 10GB ethernet connection that is also viable, but hard to get. ISP's here are required by law to allow you your own ONT but it has to meet certain standards for their network obviously.

 

ISP's that offer 8Gbit prefer it that you keep their router so you are limited to 2,5GBe + 1 GBe x 3 + wifi. Because their nodes are usually limited to 10GBps.

 

The reason you would want to use 8Gbit is the overhead. Ie I have site to site VPN between 2 locations but long distance. That means latency and that impacts how efficient the connection is. Ie at 1Gbit link speed you might only see 200 mbit in a transfer, at 8Gbit you might see 1Gbit.

 

I have 10Gbit L3 switching in place but plan forward is a MikroTik CCR2004 router. Interestingly they use the same CPU as R9000 / XR700 so it should be plenty fast, the Netgear is just lacking the second 10Gbe port.

[Fuzy]

8 hours ago, Bert said:

There is a Nokia ONT that works with a 10GB ethernet connection that is also viable, but hard to get. ISP's here are required by law to allow you your own ONT but it has to meet certain standards for their network obviously.

The ONT is integrated into the box in France for this type of "8Gbps" connection; and to my knowledge no one has managed to bypass them! A way for the ISP to keep control...

8 hours ago, Bert said:

I have 10Gbit L3 switching in place but plan forward is a MikroTik CCR2004 router. Interestingly they use the same CPU as R9000 / XR700 so it should be plenty fast, the Netgear is just lacking the second 10Gbe port.

Nevertheless, it is rather simple to set up a 10G network on several devices behind this server box...

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B07LFKGP1L/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=A1CSD37BFGDG5P&psc=1

Specifications of the delta box by Free

https://www.nextinpact.com/article/66897/freebox-delta-server-integration-quatre-hdd-mise-a-jour-memoire-et-surprise-sur-wi-fi   FR

It has an advanced management and offers, among other things, site to site wireguard

It is now offered in wifi 6e

 

which also benefits from a bridge mode to install your next mikrotik acquisition

 

I'm thinking of changing the offer, I'll keep you informed of the performance...

[Fuzy]

@Newfie

do you have any information about the intel AX201 160 Mhz wifi 6 card integrated into the motherboard ... I have a 6e wifi enabled ISP router but this card doesn't seem to detect it.

I tried to downgrade the driver 22.190 to version 22.45 as indicated on the net... but still negative result!

[Newfie]

13 hours ago, Fuzy said:

@Newfie

do you have any information about the intel AX201 160 Mhz wifi 6 card integrated into the motherboard ... I have a 6e wifi enabled ISP router but this card doesn't seem to detect it.

I tried to downgrade the driver 22.190 to version 22.45 as indicated on the net... but still negative result!

Sadly I don’t use a PC so I’ve no experience with that card or setup. 
I looked it up and I can’t see where it supports 6E, just WiFi6 by the looks of it. 
 

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/products/sku/130293/intel-wifi-6-ax201-gig/specifications.html

 

[Fuzy]

Thank you,

I am not well versed with the difference between Wifi6 and Wifi6e

If I understand correctly :

Wifi6 (ax) is on a 160 Mhz channel

Wifi6e is extended to the 6Ghz band with compatible devices ...

Indeed this card is limited to the 2.4 and 5GHz band on a 160MHz channel!

[Fuzy]

I set up my network:

 

It remains to find servers that go up to more than 250 MB/s!

[Newfie]

5 hours ago, Fuzy said:

Thank you,

I am not well versed with the difference between Wifi6 and Wifi6e

If I understand correctly :

Wifi6 (ax) is on a 160 Mhz channel

Wifi6e is extended to the 6Ghz band with compatible devices ...

Indeed this card is limited to the 2.4 and 5GHz band on a 160MHz channel!

Yes WiFi 6E uses the 6Ghz upto 160Mhz and no issues with DFS unlike the 5Ghz where 160Mhz depending on country uses the DFS channels which is a problem as it has background resources working away and you lose 160Mhz if radar is detected as it has to move off DFS for a set amount of time. As that happens the router communicates to clients a change is needed then drops down. Not all DFS events are positive though so false detection can be an issue. 
WiFI 6 uses both 2.4 and 5Ghz and has a set of standards but not all routers or APs support the full feature set ie. Some 2.4Ghz don’t support WiFi 6 on some models,  others are draft and so on. Its real use of WiFi 6 is for condensed areas where it benefits but it does offer better latency depending on client and setup.
With 160Mhz the client must be compatible so your card is where as my iPad or iPhone can only do 80Mhz. 
The next issue for gaming is depending on the hardware it’s a waiting game for clients to connect. If you have a 2x2 5Ghz stream then it’s 1, 2x2 client at a time, a 4x4 would be 2 clients who are 2x2 or 4, 1x1. If the client is 3x3 then its max is 2 as a 1x1 client can also connect. When say you have 20 clients on say a single AP then latency increases as they all have to wait in turn and if one or more clients have errors in transmission then that adds more latency. Add into it the bandwidth a client needs ie.VR then that eats resources other clients need and you have issues. 
plus to obtain max throughput the client to achieve max QAM must be close which also applies to Mu Mimo clients and there you need 2 or more compatible clients to see any benefit.

In condensed areas the noise limits the performance of 5Ghz at 160Mhz so you might end up with retransmissions even though the client shows a good connection rate. Same applies to 80 on 5Ghz so some use lower transmit power and a narrow channel ie.40Mhz on 5Ghz where neighbouring interference is an issue. 
on average I get around 2 to 3% retries on my iPad for example which indicates that it’s roaming at those points as I can see under the UI plus I’ve mapped out my property to keep the signal as close to optimum as possible for my clients vs APs. Retries can also happen if a client is close to the router or AP where the signal is too strong and errors occur. It’s just finding the balance of coverage vs interference and number of clients vs APs. The More APs then channel selection and interference can be an issue has you have to select different channels and watch the coverage vs transmit power or else you create more noise. That’s the weak point for mesh systems that offer basic controls for example as they tend to operate all on the same channels unless they are more aimed at the higher end of the market with a good control system built in. 
 

 

[Newfie]

And we are off! WiFi 7 launches this year looking at CES. Asus offering one on the 6Ghz band at 11525 and 10Gb ports. 46Gbs theoretical over all bands total. MSI have a wired looking one as does TP link. 
I bet Samsung release the first client and I’m hoping that we see a VR unit that will support it but it’s draft again. Begs the question, will we see the standard quicker this time round as WiFi 6 was hit by the Covid pandemic.