Question

Hi there.

The local (WAN) Speed Test on RUTX11 seems to be much lower than reality when measuring the download rate, yet pretty consistent on the upload rate - specifically on SIM1 which contains a UK EE SIM card (Dual Carrier Aggregation, -51dBi signal strength - network details screenshot attached). Interestingly, the SIM2 Vodafone (Single, -67dBi) connection matches the Wifi/LAN speedtest.net test Down and Up - so seems to be specific to EE/SIM1. What could be causing this?

RUTX11 is reporting 3-7Mbps Download rate, whereas speedtest is suggesting 23-32Mbps. Upload rates match at about ~40Mbps. Both tests are leveraging the same test server. Using a Macbook Pro 2022.

It's almost as if the RUTX11 DL test is not leveraging Carrier Aggregation, or is somehow getting confused with EE traffic.

Thanks for helping!

Answer 1

Hello,

The reason for low download could be simply high load or limited bandwidth of the cell tower your router is connected to.

Carrier aggregation is performed by the software within router's modem. I would suggest to test, what speeds are received, when the same SIM is used inside a smartphone.

A couple of things to tinker around with, could be setting different frequency bands. These can be set manually in Network -> Mobile -> General section.

You could also enable Software flow offloading in Network -> Firewall -> General settings section. 

Is your SIM configured to receive APN automatically, or have you preconfigured custom value? Could you check both settings?

Lastly, modem firmware update could be done.

Best regards,

Comments

Hello,

There is an assumption that, since the WebUI application only takes about 10 seconds to measure, the Speedtest application does not have enough time to reach higher speed.

Could you login via SSH and test the result with the command below:

• speedtest -t 15  

Best regards,

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Hi Zygimantas - 

I get this error: Finding Closest server... There was no response from the selected server.

I get this through the UI too, so before running test I need to select a server (unlike speedtest.net that auto selects). Is there a command to see available servers and a command to select one?

FYI - Testing now - I get ~30Mbps Down / 13Mbps Up on Speedtest.net (on Wifi), but on Router UI Speedtest, I get 7Mbps Down and 30Mbps Up(!). It's not a time window thing, as speedtest.net hits high numbers immediately. Looks like a single vs multi connection thing...

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Thank you for testing.

It would be easier to select a server in the WebUI and copy it's IP from WebUI to cli. For example:

• speedtest -u ip_address_from_webui -t 15  

Best regards,

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Hi Zygimantas,

Thanks for the command. See SSH vs Web UI vs SpeedTest via Wifi:

In this test, download rate on this same multi-aggregated connection is better than normal through the Web UI (usually about 4-8Mbps), however both SSH and Web UI is a fair bit slower than Speedtest direct on Wifi (you'd expect the other way round), and materially faster on the upload rate (as you'd expect).

Hope this is helpful with diagnosing the behaviour.

 

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Apologies, if this might start to get annoying, but could you perform another test?

When using https://www.speedtest.net/ for testing, switch from multi connections to single, and check the difference in results between LAN devices and WebUI application.

Best regards,