We activated our enterprise fiber internet today at our new location, 5 Gbps symmetrical.
The tech had a fancy hardware tester that he plugged to their EAD gateway, and repeatedly measured 4.75 Gbps or better.
I was trying to test with my laptop and a 10Gbps NIC — download was fine, ping = 1ms, however the upload never exceeded 4.0 Gbps.
It's a new Macbook Pro M3 Pro, so the CPU is definitely up to the task. NIC is an Intel Pro/10Gbe (X520-DA2) in a Sonnet enclosure (x4 lanes confirmed) via Thunderbolt3 (40Gbps).
We also use this network hardware regularly on our LAN side and get 700-1000MB/s. So the hardware chain should really be up to the task.
**The system was plugged in directly to the ISP gateway, with the public IP. No other network components, devices, no firewalls, no routers, no switches. Nada.**
Tried speedtest.net w/ multiple local servers, fast.com, Google, in Chrome, in Safari, the standalone SpeedTest app… all same results. (Well, Safari was crap, half speed.) The tech was also validating (and getting the full speed) from the same local servers.
It's always been the same case at our current location (5/5Gb DIA, different ISP), the ISP tests the full speed, but I could never quite see it. But we have a busy live network here (that I can't just yank…..) so I usually let it be.
My question is… Is there something about this tier of internet speed, PC, or desktop OS, that makes it impossible for a single system to utilize the entire (5Gbps) bandwidth? Is it about tuning the TCP stack, driver (doubt I have an alternative), or something else? It feels like I can't quite validate the service we're paying good money for…
I have several days to tinker with this, before I have to start adding loads… so I'd love to sort it out.
Asked by Drew
(740 rep)
Oct 31, 2024, 02:49 AM