Best Practices when using Orbi Router to handle a 1GB Fiber Connection when used as a Gateway

Going wireless you'll never get better than 700Mbps... the 5Ghz channel maxes out at 867Mbps.  Wired performance the most i've been able to get from inside the network is about 800Mbps.  These aren't high performance units... you won't be able to get the full 1Gbps on these devices.  If you really want to get max speeds you're going to have to look at SMB/Enterprise products.  Even high end Cisco gateways won't do 1Gbps without expensive add-on "performance" licensing.  If you really want wicked performance and don't mind the pocket book hit look at Aruba.  A single AP that can do the higher wireless AC stuff will cost you anywhere from $800-$1300 CAD.  The ubiquiti AC Pro stuff is good too at a cheaper price.

The Orbi dos work on 1Gb ISP connections. One thing when setting it up, don't enable the speedtest.app, Traffic Meter or Access controls as these will slow the connection down. If you have enabled any of these features, do a factory reset on the Orbi router then set up from scratch and don't enable those features. 

Wireless speeds should see around 400-500Mb max. This is the limits of the wifi and wifi devices currently. Nature of the beast. So always speed test with wired cable to ensure your getting 900Mb +- speeds. Wireless has to many variables and limitations. Wireless will not perform like ethernet. 

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b1ggjoe wrote:

Greetings Netgear Team,

 

I currently have CenturyLink as my ISP and subscribe to their 1GB Fiber service.

 

At the moment, I have CAT6 running from the ONT to the CenturyLink C1100T Modem. I get pretty awesome speeds as you can see in the picture here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few months back, I was hoping to eliminate the modem altogether and just use the Orbi as my main gateway. Since CenturyLink uses VLAN Tagging, I had to configure the Orbi with VLAN Tagging set to 201 along with the PPPoE credentials.

 

Oddly enough, I noticed that I would never even get close to the speeds in the picture above, when I used the Orbi as my main gateway. I would get probably no more than 500-650mbps up/down.

 

I had thought for sure, with the great hardware specs on the Orbi, that it would do a way better job of handling the routing demands with Fiber speeds than the lame CenturyLink Modem.

 

Is their anything that I can do within the Orbi's configuration, in order to make the Orbi more comptable and function better when being used as my main Gateway?

 

As an FYI, I know that with the EdgeRouterX, it had the same issue when it was first launched. Then it was addressed by enabling 'Hardware Offloading', which would then allow it to route at those speeds, but at the sacrifice of being able to utilize QoS. 

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

 

BJ

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