Rpi4b with 1gig FTTH service

OOOh, some people who know what they're doing... they even use UUIDs to identify speedtests

Note that browser based tests can be limited by the CPU available on your testing machine as well!

The above result was with my RPi and my custom HFSC shaper. It's interesting how much of a long tail the delays have. I guess that's probably more about internet congestion than my particular link.

I just find it odd that the Bell HH3000 that's connected to the exact same smart switch and media converter is getting better results. The Rpi4 should be able to achieve similar results no? At least after confirming that my LAN/WAN can achieve nearly 1gig speeds.

Your results are SICK. 0.1ms median time to the server? And max 1.9ms? You must literally have a Cloudflare CDN node at your ISPs office in the same town.

everything seems to route directly to Bell's central servers in Toronto, On. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a deal/setup with Cloudflare :wink:

I can't get decent speeds for anything local with Bell. I'm about 4hours north of Toronto.

This basically indicates that your ISP's uplink to the rest of the internet is the real speed bottleneck. I'd bet if you test at 3am you'd be getting your full speed, but probably the ISP has an uplink of say 2.5 or 5Gbps shared among everyone in your entire town/region/county and that's where the real bottleneck is.

Or there is still an issue with the latency measurements, the test is relatively new and still under development... I would not be amazed if there are issues with anti-spectre counter measures, or similar mitigations of side-channels which on the browser side often seems to boil down to degraded timing functions (as many side channels show up in changed timings of observable events based on CPU state that should be hidden).
Anyway, sorry for the detour, I had hoped that test might point a finger at Ookla :wink: (fast.con is known to be flaky for Gbps-Links, for some it works for some it doesn't, and since it essentially is a test of how good netflox will run on a link, anything above 4 UHD streams, so >= 100 Mbps, is plenty fast ;))

Here are some more results using my LAPTOP instead of my PC to make sure it's not a client/CPU issue.

FROM my Bell Homebub 3000 LAN I connected my Laptop directly:


Bell HH3K LAN results: https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat?test-id=baf08b32-c89b-4cea-a898-9be5890c7644

From my Rpi4 LAN I connected my laptop directly to my LAN switch:


Rpi4 LAN results: https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat?test-id=e3770275-84a9-4f4e-86d1-2eeb129b1b41

yeah.. who knows.. its just so frustrating not knowing exactly what the issue is.. and you're probably right.. this is probably the best it'll get.. just weird how the speeds fluctuate from test to test.. like the one I just did.. I'm getting faster UPLOAd speeds again :roll_eyes:

This is precisely what makes me think it's upstream congestion as then it depends on your neighborhoods total usage which will seem random with variation throughout the day

Bell Support seems to believe there's any issue with my Bell Homehub3000 modem/router so they're sending me a new one... :roll_eyes:
They agree that my DOWNLOAD speeds are much lower that what I should be receiving.. especially since my UPLOAD speeds are twice as fast..

I only had to reboot a dozen times.. do 3 or 4 factory resets before they believed me lol
There's obviously "something" going on.. since my Rpi4 gets similar results.. UPLOADING is often MUCH higher than my DOWNLOAD speeds. I asked to make sure they weren't throttling or traffic shaping my connection.. they said no..

I guess I'll see what kind of results I get with a new modem/router in a few days.. I'm almost %100 sure I'll get similar results.

It's entirely possible that you need to replace an ethernet cable between your RPi and the Bell device. Just try inserting a different cable there, and see how that goes.

Those last results were from my laptop connected directly to a LAN port on the Bell modem/router. I even tried hooking up my pc on a separate port with another cable. I even hooked up the fibre directly to the Bell modem/router and disconnected the media converter and managed switch. I wanted to make sure nothing I added to my network could have affected my connection. I’m still convinced there’s “something” else on Bell’s side affecting my throughput. :roll_eyes:

Hmm... is this Bell device needed? If you have a media converter that converts from fiber to ethernet, just plug your RPi directly to that?

(Note: on ATT's network, they have secret crypto certs in their device that authenticate and so you can't easily just get rid of their router... so there are cases where you can't, but I suspect if you have a GPON ONT or something similar you can just connect your RPi router direct to it)

That’s exactly how I had it setup. :wink:

I just removed it while testing with Bell support. That way they couldn’t try blaming my gear for my performance issues.

Normal setup:
Fibre => media converter => managed switch =>

Managed switch
Port 1: media converter
Port 2: Bell Modem/router WAN (for iptv)
Port 3: Rpi4 WAN (internet)
Port 4: Management for managed switch
Port 5: testlan (to test Rpi4 wan/lan throughput)

I once tried to get my Archer C7 to run both my iptv and internet and it never worked properly. My tv video kept on freezing every few seconds. So I gave up and got the managed switch so I could keep both going separately.

Hmmm... i don't remember the details but make sure the bell device can't talk to the VLAN where the RPi4 accessed the internet. If two routers fight over who routes what it could cause issues

This is how my managed switch is configured:

I would change VLAN 35 to have only port 1 tagged and port 3 untagged, remove port 2 tagged. Then the bell device only handles the IPTV stuff. right now the Bell and the RPi seem to be fighting with the media converter for control over the internet packets on VLAN 35

I’ll give that a try tomorrow and see what I get. (My kids and my wife will lose it if I take anything down right now lol)
I think it was setup that way originally as the Bell receivers needed internet for certain features/apps and services it can handle.. such as Netflix and YouTube. I don’t think it’s needed anymore.
I might even attempt seeing if my Rpi4 could handle iptv and internet. :thinking:

If I decide to completely remove the Bell HH3k and managed switch...

Is it possible to tag multiple vlans on the rpi4 if I hook up my fibre (via the media converter) directly to it?

For Bell I need these vlans:
vlan 35: internet (pppoe)
vlan 36: iptv

My Rpi4 has 2 ports:
eth1 (USB3 Tp-Link UE300) WAN
eth0 (onboard nic) LAN

My guess is it wouldn’t work.. but figured I’d ask :wink:

Short answer: of course the PI can tag different vlans. Create an interface called IPTV using eth1.36 and change WAN to be eth1.35. make port 3 tagged for both.

But... Does the Pi need to be involved in the IPTV at all? What do you watch the IPTV on? Maybe it can be plugged into a port that's untagged for vlan 36 and that's all you need?