Peplink Balance 20 Slow WAN throughput

I have a Peplink Balance 20 (hardware revision 3), with firmware 7.0.0 build 3295.

On one of the WAN ports, I have an ADSL modem/router.
Connecting via the balance 20, I am getting 1-3 Mbit/s download speeds, but when I connect directly to the ADSL modem, I am getting 4.8 Mbit/s.

My outbound policy are using the “priority” algorithm, with ADSL at the top.
I’m not doing much with QoS, other than putting VoIP & Skype as a high priority.

I’ve tried setting wan connection to full duplex 100 and 1000 (rather than auto), and have tried changing MTU values to ISP defaults, with no change.

Any idea why I’m not getting full throughput?

May I know the testing PC was connected directly to Balance 20’s LAN port when doing the speed test? If so, please open ticket for us to take closer look.

Did you use the DSL optimization feature?

You will lose some throughput going through an extra hop - though not as much as you are experiencing.

If you are using wifi, that will slow it down too since it has an encryption algorithm associated.

I was connecting via a 24 port switch, but I will connect directly today and retest to rule that out.

I have tried with the DSL optimization feature both on and off with no change.

I have also tested using wifi and ethernet with similar results. When I was testing the adsl speed directly, I was connecting to the ADSL router via Wifi.

Just another thing to check - do you have any “bandwidth allocations/reservations” set up for user groups? One of them actually reserves portions of the capacity - I assume it would disallow the connection to be fully utilized unless members from all three groups were using it up (one manager can only use 80% because the other 20% is reserved for staff/guests)

Also, make sure your upload and download speeds are configured properly in the WAN settings. Maybe try doubling the capabilities and see what you get? I am pretty sure that those settings are only used for load balancing that requires them - I don’t think the peplink would throttle it because of these settings.

Another thought is the 24 port switch in the path to the peplink. It will introduce a bit of latency. Is it a managed switch by chance?

It is also possible that the connection behaves differently based on what device and negotiations are present. I.e. The regular modem has some kind of proprietary speed boost stuff when both ends of the connection share a manufacturer. Not every manufacturer treats standards as they were intended.