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So, not sure if this fits here best or the Apple forum. But I wanted to share a recent experience.
I recently upgraded my home internet to gigabit fiber. My home network is pretty straightforward, fiber ONT>ethernet>Time Capsule (it is a 2TB 802.11ac model). I have a handful of wireless clients and two desktop computers hooked up via ethernet via a dumb-switch. I was initially doing a lot of research on upgrading my Time Capsule with a more modern/capable setup as I had read that when running in routing mode, the TC maxes out at 200-300 Mbps throughput and this would become a major limiter on my new connection. However, after the ISP technician came and set up my new connection (had to replace my old previous ONT) I ran a test...
Using an old laptop (~2009 MBP) and hardwired into the TC, I ran speedtest.net check and got about 250Mbps down and 900+Mbps up. I was not surprised at the 250Mbps down however I was surprised at the upload. I did not expect to see the full gigabit speeds on upload because of the aforementioned throughput limitations of the TC.
Now here is where the story gets really interesting. I went over to my desktop PC (modern, high end gaming PC) which is also hardwired to the TC. I ran speedtest.net check there and was able to get about 650Mbps down and 900+Mbps up. I can only surmise that my old laptop CPU was the limiting factor on the incoming bandwidth? But somehow only on the downlink and not the uplink? Even so, 650Mbps down is still *significantly* higher than what I was expecting given what I had researched about the TC's raw throughput capabilities as a router. I did a check on DSLreports.com and the results there were a little different, about 450Mbps down and 900+ up.
Now for the last piece. I loaded up Steam and picked a couple titles to install. Surprisingly enough here, in "real world" test conditions I was able to pull sustained ~100MBps (yes MB, not Mb) download rates from the steam servers. Looking at the windows task manager I saw my ethernet connection hitting 800-900 MBps download utilization which lines up with the Steam reported rates of 100MB/s. This is even higher than the results given by the speedtest.net web check!
Not that I am complaining or anything, and I apologize for the flexing of my new WAN connection
, but can anyone help me maybe understand what I am seeing here? The obvious question to ask is "are you sure your TC is not in bridge mode" and yes, I did go double check and confirm that my TC is indeed still running in "DHCP and NAT" mode and not in "bridge" mode. Did something change with Apple TC routers that they suddenly have really good throughput? Are these speed tests/results I am running somehow misleading and not representative of what people quote when they list max throughput values for routers? I am just a little confused. I thought maybe the stuff I read about the apple TC was the older (flat square) model but no, even the newer ac models are quoted to have these throughput limitations.
Previously, I was kind of assuming that I would have to upgrade my network infrastructure to fully utilize gigabit internet (was looking at unifi stuff) but at this point I don't know if it is even necessary...
Ruahrc
I recently upgraded my home internet to gigabit fiber. My home network is pretty straightforward, fiber ONT>ethernet>Time Capsule (it is a 2TB 802.11ac model). I have a handful of wireless clients and two desktop computers hooked up via ethernet via a dumb-switch. I was initially doing a lot of research on upgrading my Time Capsule with a more modern/capable setup as I had read that when running in routing mode, the TC maxes out at 200-300 Mbps throughput and this would become a major limiter on my new connection. However, after the ISP technician came and set up my new connection (had to replace my old previous ONT) I ran a test...
Using an old laptop (~2009 MBP) and hardwired into the TC, I ran speedtest.net check and got about 250Mbps down and 900+Mbps up. I was not surprised at the 250Mbps down however I was surprised at the upload. I did not expect to see the full gigabit speeds on upload because of the aforementioned throughput limitations of the TC.
Now here is where the story gets really interesting. I went over to my desktop PC (modern, high end gaming PC) which is also hardwired to the TC. I ran speedtest.net check there and was able to get about 650Mbps down and 900+Mbps up. I can only surmise that my old laptop CPU was the limiting factor on the incoming bandwidth? But somehow only on the downlink and not the uplink? Even so, 650Mbps down is still *significantly* higher than what I was expecting given what I had researched about the TC's raw throughput capabilities as a router. I did a check on DSLreports.com and the results there were a little different, about 450Mbps down and 900+ up.
Now for the last piece. I loaded up Steam and picked a couple titles to install. Surprisingly enough here, in "real world" test conditions I was able to pull sustained ~100MBps (yes MB, not Mb) download rates from the steam servers. Looking at the windows task manager I saw my ethernet connection hitting 800-900 MBps download utilization which lines up with the Steam reported rates of 100MB/s. This is even higher than the results given by the speedtest.net web check!
Not that I am complaining or anything, and I apologize for the flexing of my new WAN connection
, but can anyone help me maybe understand what I am seeing here? The obvious question to ask is "are you sure your TC is not in bridge mode" and yes, I did go double check and confirm that my TC is indeed still running in "DHCP and NAT" mode and not in "bridge" mode. Did something change with Apple TC routers that they suddenly have really good throughput? Are these speed tests/results I am running somehow misleading and not representative of what people quote when they list max throughput values for routers? I am just a little confused. I thought maybe the stuff I read about the apple TC was the older (flat square) model but no, even the newer ac models are quoted to have these throughput limitations.Previously, I was kind of assuming that I would have to upgrade my network infrastructure to fully utilize gigabit internet (was looking at unifi stuff) but at this point I don't know if it is even necessary...
Ruahrc
