dane wrote:johnhontran wrote:
I have a computer nearby I'll plug it directly to that to test tonight. Will check and see what speed I'm getting from the ONT.
Then again i would expected the installer would have tested it to see what type of bandwidth the ONT is providing.
Yes, they're supposed to. But I checked your individual installation workflow and I only see tests from a phone on WiFi. I've already got an inquiry in to field to check on that.
But fundamentally, fiber-optic networks don't go different speeds. It's XGS-PON, which is 10Gbps technology, and which after all of the various overheads delivers about 8,600Mbps of payload throughput. Seeing lower speeds would almost always mean issues with the capacity of something like the customer premise router, or a limitation in how you're connected - Ethernet cable, laptop/desktop Ethernet capacity, IO capacity of the computer, av software interfering with performance, etc. And don't get me started on WiFi. =)
So, XGS-PON has a theoretical maximum of 8.6Gb (this article has a lot of detailed info as to why
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9271741) and with a standard TCP overhead (common speed tests are TCP) that number becomes around 8.1Gbps. So really you should expect to see a maximum speed of around 8.1Gbps when doing speed tests. While this is a little disappointing for tinkerers like me who want to optimize as much as possible, it's hard to really complain about given the outstanding performance/price that the service offers.
I would, however, argue that this information
could be a bit more up front. It probably hasn't mattered much because most people aren't going to have routing hardware to hit these limits, but as these devices become cheaper and more popular people are going to start seeing that the numbers don't add up and will want to know why.
I think Sonic could improve the documentation, for example here
https://www.sonic.com/residential/internet"What equipment do I need to optimize Sonic’s 10-Gigabit connection?"
"Getting the maximum speed of 10 Gigabits requires 10 Gigabit-capable equipment. 10-Gigabit ports are required on your personal devices to achieve maximum speed. These fast speeds are achieved using ethernet cables irrespective of device location. Ethernet outperforms WiFi and achieves around 9400 Mbps with 10-Gigabit Ethernet. Please see our helpful article for more tips on maximizing your speed."
The way this is phrased makes it technically correct, but in the context of a 10Gb residential internet FAQ for a XGS-PON service the 9400 number is a number that you simply can't achieve and is unhelpful at best and misleading at worst.
The helpful article linked in the quote is here
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... ion-WiFi-6 and is really where I think there is room to go in to more detail about what the maximum theoretical speed of the 10Gb service is.
This article focuses heavily on WiFi and why you're not going to see 10Gb/s with WiFi, this is totally fair and is likely to be the main source of questions for the less-technically-inclined. However it does say under "Connected via Ethernet" that you can expect "Up to 10Gb/s" which should realistically be "Up to 8.6Gb/s". Also there's a typo on this help page, it says that the "Expected WiFi Speeds" of 802.11ax are "500Mb/s up to 1,500Gb/s" 1500Gb/s!!!!! That's amazing!!!
I'm not saying that Sonic should be advertising their service as "8.6Gb Fiber Internet" because I have at least a vague understanding of how marketing works, however I think it would be good to document the theoretical maximum somewhere in the official help pages so that people who are trying to find / configure the right hardware to maximize their speeds don't have to waste time digging through forums to find out they're already hitting the limit.
I only came across this thread because it was linked to me by Customer Support when I was asking them about this (thanks btw). Doing a Google search for "sonic 10gb max speed" shows me the following result:
Google is not being particularly helpful here but it shows how misleading this can be to someone who isn't going to dig in to the details. This thread is the only place I've found the actual answer so far and it is titled "What equipment to buy for Sonic 10 Gigabits Fiber" so probably isn't going to show up very high in any search results.
Anyway, love the service, I think being up front about a slightly-lower-but-still-amazing speed would be a good idea.
