Surf SOHO MK3 routing speed mediocre

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

I have had a couple of older Surf SOHO and decided to try the new MK3. I set it up with the factory default configuration to test it before deploying and have been getting mediocre routing performance around 120 Mbps.

I have a Arris SB8200 DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem with the 200/10 Mbps Comcast service tier. My baseline test was directly connecting my Mac to my modem via ethernet. That was performing at about 230/12 Mbps on IPv6 speed tests. IPv4 tests were slightly slower in the 215/12 Mbps range.

I then rebooted the cable modem and connected it via Ethernet to the MK3 WAN port, and my laptop via Ethernet to the MK3 LAN port. First thing I noticed is the MTU defaulted to 1440, not auto. I set it to auto and it negotiated 1500. When running the same speed test service, I am getting about half the download speed through the MK3 that I was when directly connected to the modem, in the neighborhood of 120/12 Mbps over IPv4. I also tried to change the WAN link speed from auto to 1000Gbps full duplex and got the same results. I upgraded the firmware from 6.3.3 to 7.0.2 and reran the tests with the same results.

What routing speed should I expect from the MK3? If this maxes out at around 120 Mbps, there isn’t much point in upgrading from the previous version. Any suggestions on other things I should try?

2

Its advertised router throughput is 120 Mbps, which I believe is a slight improvement over earlier generations.

Pepwave Surf SOHO Specifications

The Mk3 also upgrades the Wi-Fi from N to AC and the number of antennas from 2 to 3. It also now offers concurrent dual-band Wi-Fi.

But if you are provisioned higher than that rate, you might want to consider a Balance One.

1 Like
3

I am having the exact same issue with my surf soho. My firmware is up to date (8.0), and no matter what settings i adjust, speeds drop by more than half when behind the soho, as opposed to plugging into the modem.I’m currently getting 30mbps DL with the surf, and 90mbps with the modem. Did you ever figure out a solution to this at all?

4

My issue was explained by scuba_steve: I was exceeding the bandwidth of the router. Your problem is different though. The router’s advertised bandwidth is 120 Mbps which I was hitting and you aren’t close to that.