Router limiting outbound traffic?
darrkowitz
Enthusiast - Level 1

Hello,

It appears to me that my Verizon Acctiontec MI424WR-GEN3I router is hard throttling outbound traffic.

I have FIOS 50/25 mbps service and with it the Verizon speedtest is reporting d/l ~ 55mbps and u/l ~ 35mbps,
great!  However, when I try to send a file using a http server, I am hard limited to 425,800 B/s (~4mbps),
which is well below the rate indicated by speedtest.verizon.com.  

I have tried both IIS and Apache on multiple different machines with no difference in results. I have tried a
multitude of different ports, again hitting a wall at 425,800 B/s.  Running the file transfer within the LAN
both IIS and Apache are moving data at LAN speeds as expected.  I then tried the same data transfer to the
same LAN destination, but forcing the path through the WAN port of the router and wham, the transfer was
again hard limited to the magic 425,800 rate.  I then tested the transfers to a destination outside the
router and once again the transfer rate was only able to max out at 425,800 bytes/second.

I was able to achieve transfers of up to 12 mbps to a remote FTP site using port 23, but with a web server
using any of the web ports (standard and non-standard) I tried, were hard limited.  As a result of this
testing, I believe that the router itself is limiting the outbound throughput except for speedtest and ftp.  

Has anyone else seen this?  Is there a way around this?  Will traffic shaping help in this regard?  Any

Ideas?

Thanks

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1 Solution

Correct answers
Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
click4dylan
Contributor - Level 1

The solution to this problem is to use NGINX, not IIS or Apache, and to completely reset windows 7's TCP/IP stack to default. Do NOT use verizon's speed optimizer. I had this problem for years and it's since been fixed now. It took me months to diagnose the issue.

I also noticed that upgrading to Windows 8.1 for whatever reason, fixed the problem as well.

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

B is bytes b is bits.  8 bits to a Byte.  If its really 425,800 B/s thats not bad, considering the overhead for this type of file transfer.  But also check if you have QOS set which would also limit such things.

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
darrkowitz
Enthusiast - Level 1

TNS,

Yes to B=bytes, and b=bits, the context of my post should have made that clear.   With TCP framing overhead and MTU size, the ratio of bits sent to bytes is ~9 to 1.

425,800 B/s is not great when expecting ~ 8 times that rate based upon service level.

There is no QoS entry listed in the router configuration but I suspect that there may be one that is not listed (hidden by manufacturer or Verizon, that is).

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

Based on the service you stated, the Best would be about 3 time faster.   But lots of things effect outbound. 

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
Kestrel3
Contributor - Level 2

I have been seeing this problem since last December and still can't find a solution or get Verizon to fix it.  Verizon has been sort of trying by sending techs out, but if the speed test shows fine when they are at your residence, then nothing will get done.   Lately it has gotten worse for me with the speed test regularly showing slow upload speeds at night, but Verizon does not care if there isn't a tech at your house at that time.

I do not believe that the router is causing the issue though, since I have tried 3 different Rev. I routers and a Rev. D router, and none fix the upload speed issue.   I first noticed the problem when I upgraded from 25/25 to 50/25, and it got slightly better when I upgraded once again to 50/50, but actual uploads always seem to max out at about  20% of promised speeds.

Please see the thread I started here:

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Slow-real-world-upload-speed/td-p/654849

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
darrkowitz
Enthusiast - Level 1

TNS,

I believe that the 12 mbps ftp rate on port 23 was limited by the external destination, not the router itself.  The issue is using a web port (standard or custom) to push data to an external destination IS seems to be throttled by the router by a hard limit that happens to be 425,800 B/s.  Again, this hard limit is repeatible using different hardware, different web server software and different ports.  Since my application requires the use of http services, not ftp, I am stuck at an output rate of 1/9 the current capability.

Interestingly, I was just notified by Verizon that they will be increasing the upload rate to match the download rate, presumably to be 50/50 mbps.  This would be great news if all I had to do was to run Verizon's upload tests all day.  However, when it comes to using the internet connection for things useful to me,  I would just be happy if Verizon would increase the usable upload to their currently advertised rates, no matter what port I wanted to push data on.

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
Kestrel3
Contributor - Level 2

Can you test by using a high quality third party router instead?  If you are connected by ethernet to the ONT, it is possible to bypass the Actiontec.

Again, I did get better upload speeds (although still much slower than they should be)  when Verizon recently upgraded me from 50/25 to 50/50, so it doesn't seem like it is a router problem. Since it seems like my upload speed slowed down beginning late last year and was much faster before that, I suspect the problem is somewhere outside of my house in the Verizon network, perhaps an oversaturated PON card or Verizon simply prioritizing download bandwidth at the cost of upload bandwidth somehwere in their network.

I am also curious what effect using a VPN might have on this issue.  The third party router and VPN are the only two things that I could possibly try at this point that I haven't done but could try on my own, so let us know if you have a chance to try out those and what the results are.

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
darrkowitz
Enthusiast - Level 1

Kestrel,

It turns out that this morning I received my Verizon upload increase and now, accoring to speedtest.verizon.com, I am getting 58.6 D and 61.3 U mbps - impressive!

I would be a happy camper if all I did all day was to run the Verizon speed test.   However, running my same test using a HTTP upload, I am still limited to 425,800 B/s.  To me, this implies that the router is indeed the culprit. 

Using a different router is an interesting idea.  I don't have a "better" stock 3rd party router laying around, but I could make one using RouterOS and a multi-interfaced PC.  I need to mull over this some more before I attempt to take down my home network for such an experiment.

Is there a Verizon expert out there reading this?  If so, please make sense of all this!

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
Kestrel3
Contributor - Level 2

Can you unplug the router and just connect your computer directly to the ONT via ethernet as a test?

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Re: Router limiting outbound traffic?
Anti-Phish1
Master - Level 1

@darrkowitz wrote:

To me, this implies that the router is indeed the culprit. 


I don't see how you can possibly conclude that the router is your issue, if you're getting 58/61 on the VZ speedtest site.

The router doesn;t know or care what speedtest site you go to.

To me it sounds like you're being throttled by the site you're going to.

I second the suggestion of a previous poster to plug your PC directly into the ONT (it must be provisioned for cat5 WAN to do this).  If you get the same behavior, that will rule out the router.

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