Slower speeds when connecting through Balance20 vs. directly to modem

Good afternoon. I recently upgraded my internet service to Time Warner Cable’s Wideband service. When I connect directly to the modem, I get the promised speeds of 35x5. However, when I connect through my Peplink router, which is then connected to a Cisco gigabit switch, I’m only getting 17x5. Now, I’m no expert on how to configure this router, I know the basics. I’ve ripped through all of the settings and can’t decide why I’m not getting the faster speeds.

I know this is tough to troubleshoot without knowing my settings, but is there somewhere I should start to try and figure out what the problem might be?

Thank you

Sounds like you have the classic model Balance 20 device, it is several years old and back then 5Mbps Cable was considered extremely fast. It was rated for up to 20Mbps max throughput.

The current Balance 20, which is in a metal enclosure vs plastic is rated for 100Mbps throughput.

Thank you Tom for the quick response! I’ll order a new one.

Thanks Anthony! You will love your new Balance 20 :slight_smile:

I just received my new Balance 20, and it is working like a charm. 35mbps speeds and easy setup. Thanks again for the information.

That’s awesome Anthony, enjoy!!

I bought my balance 20 a few months ago from amazon, it has a metal casing, I connect directly to the modem, I get the promised 15/1 speed, as soon as I connect the balance 20, it goes down to around 3.5/1, what could be causing this?

I am combining two speeds, 10/1 and 15/1, when I try them connecting the modems directly to my computer, I get very close to those speeds, when I connect to the PB 20, they combine to a very slow 5/1.8 connection.

I would ensure that the device is on 5.4.9 firmware or higher. If the issue is still persistent please open a support ticket and we can certainly dive in deeper. http://cs.peplink.com/contact/support/

No, I still have the firmware where it was from factory, please have a look at my screenshot.

[TABLE=“class: form_table, width: 1”]

Firmware
5.3.12 build 1734

[/TABLE]


It sounds like you are thinking of our speedfusion technology which aggregates the WANs throughput. The balance 20’s do not have the SF functionality but you will still be able to load-balance (round robin) between both of your connections. I would test the connections individually when connected to the balance and see what the metrics are. Also, here is a link to 5.4.9 firmware:

http://download.peplink.com/firmware/plb30/fw-b20_30-5.4.9-build1732.bin

I did test them, disconnecting one and individually testing each speed, I still get much, much lower speeds through the PB 20. I am upgrading the firmware, and I will check back here.

Connections are still running super low connected to the balance 20. :frowning:

I have both connections “always on”, should I do otherwise, perhaps on should be a “backup”?, I personally don’t see why and I would be very dissapointed, if the router is made to operate with both connections “always on”, then I shouldn’t have to disconnect anything to make it work, does that make sense?

Firmware upgraded, problem persists.

I deleted all outbound rules. Did a hard reset. Still getting slow speeds.

You cannot use speedtest.net or most speedtest sites to test the aggregate throughput, this is because they only open a single socket for the test.

To test the actual capacity of your connections, you need to use a test that allows multiple streams, like this one:
http://speedtest.windstream.net/

thanks for the great support! :smiley:

Even if you test ONE connection you can’t use speedtest.net?

Test results look up, but, correct me if I’m wrong, does my speed drops to 5.4mbps with latency at 100ms+ WHEN CONNECTED TO THE PB20?, because it seems that way when I test individual connections and the ping is over 100ms, speeds drop below 5. This, however, is not the case when I test using the modem directly.

What does that 3.08mbps stand for?


Hi,

Believe this is the estimated figure and please ignore this. I also getting 5.24Mbps at 100ms and it is fixed during I do the speed test.


15.4Mbps is your download bandwidth and 3.08Mbps is your Upload bandwidth.