Handling multiple users on Balance One (long)

I have 1-5 users on 40 mbps connection with no QoS configured. Connection was slightly slowing down as more users download, VoIP, Netflix, or torrent. Problem was noticed mostly by gamers. So, I bought Peplink Balance One and an additional 20 mbps connection. Unfortunately, this problem seems to have gotten much worse with this setup, as everyone notices the problem now, and not just gamers.

I did a test where I concurrently download 1 GB file and upload 100 MB file, on each of the two connections, and on the Balance One. When using Balance One my connection was almost unusable, while the other lines were slow but not as bad.

So, I tried several combinations of the following:

  1. Configured QoS Application Prioritization. I added all gaming ports as high priority; no noticeable difference at all.
  2. Enabled QoS Group Bandwidth Reservation and gave managers group 70% reservation; there was a slight improvement.
  3. Added users to staff group and gave each user a bandwidth limit of 10 mbps only; huge improvement.

With the third step above, a user can even use torrents without affecting anyone else. However, each user started to complain that their connection slows down to a crawl if they do multiple things at once, like download and browse at the same time, which is a problem that didn’t exist before.

I could not, no matter how much I changed, of beating the connection performance of using a single connection without the Balance One. Why can my telecom provided cheap modem handle multiple users perfectly, while Balance One fails to do the same even with QoS and an additional connection?

I don’t want to limit users to 10 mbps, especially that most of the time, there is only a single person using the connection at a time. I want each user to enjoy the max available bandwidth, and only slow down if there are other users.

What am I doing wrong? How can I solve this problem without adding limitations? How can I give everyone the max available bandwidth, without affecting other users, like my telecom provided modem?

Please open a support ticket for further checking:
https://contact.peplink.com/secure/create-support-ticket.html
Thanks.

Perhaps simplify to pinpoint the problem.

Start with a single computer connected directly to an ISP modem via Ethernet and run speed tests from 2 providers
then turn modem off, connect it to the Peplink router, power on modem, wait, power on router, wait
Then take the same computer and Ethernet connect it to Peplink router and run the same two speed tests

Then do the same with the other ISP connection.

Your connection speeds should not be taxing the Balance One in any way.

If the problem is only evident when load balancing between the two ISP connections, then check the speed you told the router that each connection runs at. And, there are multiple load balancing rules to look into.

I opened a ticket and I’m working with the support to fix it. We already made some changes and monitoring, but there seems to be little improvement.

I already did many tests, including the one you suggested. I get higher speed at speedtest.net when using Peplink+2WANs compared to using either WAN separately. When I test Peplink+1WAN, I get the same speed as using the WAN directly.

What I’m saying here is that the Peplink router seems to allow a single user to drain WAN(s) bandwidth to the maximum 100%, causing congestion for other users, while the ISP router seems to be more relaxed and only drains 99%, giving other users a little bandwidth to use and preventing congestion. At least that’s how it feels to me. The problem is only evident when using Peplink with either WAN, or when using Peplink with both WANs.

As I mentioned before, introducing limits fixes this problem, but I want the users to enjoy the maximum bandwidth, because most of the time there’s only a single user on the network. Also, with limits, each user started to complain that their connection becomes congested if they start to download anything, while other users are not affected.