[Guide] What equipment to buy for Sonic 10 Gigabits Fiber

[dane]

I can't shed any light on where we'll end up, but it's an area we're seeing a lot of new equipment options in the pipeline that will bring down costs and simplify the deployments while achieving the maximum possible speed on both wired and WiFi-connected devices.

[thejimmyz]

Sounds mysterious and exciting! Let's hope for early 2023

[daniel15]

My own experience testing a TP-Link “10Gbps” device [...] A computer behind it could attain about 6,000Mbps. But eliminating the router, the laptop pretty consistently got 8,600Mbps.

Which TP-Link device was it? I just finished fully setting up and racking my TP-Link ER8411, and the speeds I get from a computer connected to it via a MikroTik 10Gbps switch are the same as what I get if the computer is directly connected to the ONT. I've tested it a bit at different times of the day, and the fastest I've seen with a speed test is ~8200Mbps down and ~6020Mbps up.

The ER8411 doesn't have a speed test option in its interface though, or at least I couldn't find it.

[thengos]

This post has the best information on which hardware you should get. But the gist is you need a route with TWO 10Gbps ports, and none will give you true 10Gbps, for now.

https://dongknows.com/10gbps-internet-u ... ds-secret/

[ngufra]

Engenius just released a 12 ports 10Gbps SPF+ managed switch: ECS5512F.
Sells for about $500. Half 1U rack form factor.

https://www.engeniustech.com/engenius-p ... er-switch/

They are shipping today the ESG510 gateway but that one in only at 2.5Gbps. The new one that supports two 10 Gbbs ports is the ESG620 and is "coming soon". https://static.engeniuscdn.com/wp-conte ... 122022.pdf

[laikitso]

I use SpeedTest++ compiled on my Mac and here are some of the tests I've ran: (for some reason, it doesn't always give me speed result urls that I can link)
https://www.speedtest.net/result/14017136089.png
https://www.speedtest.net/result/14019101464.png
https://www.speedtest.net/result/14026820841.png

Interesting. It looks like taganaka's speedtest client is more optimized than the official one.

Code: Select all

root@f1911de6fa8a:/SpeedTest# ./SpeedTest --share --test-server speedtest.sjc.sonic.net:8080 --output verbose
SpeedTest++ version 1.14
Speedtest.net command line interface
Info: https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest
Author: Francesco Laurita <[email protected]>

IP: 0.0.0.0 ( Sonic.net, LLC ) Location: [0,0]
Selected server: speedtest.sjc.sonic.net:8080
Ping: 2 ms.
Jitter: 0 ms.
Determine line type (2) ........................
Fiber / Lan line type detected: profile selected fiber

Testing download speed (32) ........................................................................................................................................................................................................
Download: 9893.10 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed (12) ........................................................................................................................................................................................................
Upload: 10742.25 Mbit/s

[johnhontran]

Purchased 10GBE NIC card for my PC tested with a CAT7 and CAT8. Connected directly from the ONT to my PC and I am only seeing 2500MBPS-3000MBPS. No where near the 8000MBPS.

Is this good enough to say that the Tech didn't test the line? Or does Sonic want me to buy a thunderbolt adapter and test that out so they can send out a tech to fix this?

[keithah42]

Purchased 10GBE NIC card for my PC tested with a CAT7 and CAT8. Connected directly from the ONT to my PC and I am only seeing 2500MBPS-3000MBPS. No where near the 8000MBPS.

The tech said he was required to test the line (ran 3 or 4 diff speed tests, all using the browser though, haha), but those speeds sound more of a driver problem with the NIC than the line itself.. I did buy this RJ45 PCIE NIC and got really good speeds on it too, in Linux, FWIW. My friends who do work on 10g+ gear for a living told me only buy Intel stuff and recommend the X540, so thats what I followed.

Are you using the desktop app, or a browser? Speedtest has a pretty good desktop app on Mac and Windows, but the SpeedTest I linked above works the best on Linux/Mac IMO.

[keithah42]

Interesting. It looks like taganaka's speedtest client is more optimized than the official one.

Code: Select all

Download: 9893.10 Mbit/s
Upload: 10742.25 Mbit/s

Wow these are incredible speeds! I've used this other client for years and had better success. Who knows which one is more accurate?

Also, it's so annoying it doesn't spit out a share link all the time!

[daniel15]

Purchased 10GBE NIC card for my PC tested with a CAT7 and CAT8. Connected directly from the ONT to my PC and I am only seeing 2500MBPS-3000MBPS. No where near the 8000MBPS.

How are you testing the speed? At these fast speeds, the only accurate way to test is through a native desktop app like the Speedtest.net app. Anything web-based won't give an accurate result.

Also, test it with a high quality CAT6 cable from a good brand (Monoprice, Cable Matters, TrueCable, Tripp Lite, NavePoint, etc) rather than a generic brand CAT7 or CAT8 cable. CAT7 isn't really a thing - real CAT7 is a proprietary standard and uses TERA or GG45 connectors rather than 8P8C ("RJ45") connectors. Any CAT7 you've got that has RJ45 connectors is likely just CAT5e or CAT6 relabelled as "CAT7".

Interesting. It looks like taganaka's speedtest client is more optimized than the official one.

Code: Select all

Download: 9893.10 Mbit/s
Upload: 10742.25 Mbit/s

Wow these are incredible speeds! I've used this other client for years and had better success. Who knows which one is more accurate?

It's physically impossible to get a download speed of 9893Mbps (or an upload speed that's even faster) over 10GBase-T, and as Sonic users we don't have any other choice since the ONT only has an RJ45 port.

There's overhead in Ethernet frames and IP packets, so you can't actually transmit at the full speed of the medium. Assuming no jumbo frames and just the regular 1500 MTU (which is what the internet uses), there's around 6% overhead. This means you can only achieve a theoretical maximum of ~940Mbps over 1000Base-T and ~9.4Gbps over 10GBase-T.

I initially thought that this other SpeedTest client must be showing the speed including overhead (i.e. adding ~6% to the speeds), but by looking through issues on GitHub, it sounds like the results are just way too high sometimes, with one user saying it showed a speed of 2180Mbps through a Gigabit network card: https://github.com/taganaka/SpeedTest/issues/20 (last comment).