Next question, does voyager use the "right performing" plans which run at a slightly higher speed to offset the packet overhead caused by PPPoE?

Or do they not use PPPoE?

We dont use it so I am not sure what the performance drop is with the ppp overhead, but I know it used to mean you never got the full speed.

Then (As i understand it) a few meetings at chorus happened where James Watt put up a good fight to get right performing options. But as I understand it, those services are above the regulated options and not all ISPs use them. 

But to be honest, if you are getting 96mbits its quite acceptable.

There is always the possibility that your node is expierencing congestion - remember your connection between voyager and your house usually only has a CIR of 2.5mbits or something like that.

Well you can rule out the cable between the router and the pc by doing a test with mikrotik test tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG-qnAwHBTk

If you are getting less than 100, then you know its the link from that to the router.

I think Rays response about the CIR is could also be a factor. If your connection is tagged then the CIR might be reserved or something, it depends how they have set it up. I know chorus actually provision just over 100mbps burst on the downstream now on that plan so when you do a speed test at layer 3 you should see 100mbit or maybe even just above. I wouldn't get strung up on the last couple of meg personally. The deal they are doing for unlimited 100/20 UFB is a steal which is why it is on a 2 year contract. And you should be able to have multiple videos streaming + gaming + phones, tablets and a load of other stuff all going on at the same time and probably not ever have problems with speed. Im on 25mbit vdsl and I can get 2 netflix streams off at the same time and make voip calls.

One other point check the colour of the light on the ONT. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=127540

And on a further note, I had my Pc in the lounge connect to my mikrotik at 100mbps the other day on a gig port.... not sure why, but when i pulled the cable out and plugged it into the next port over it connected at a gig and i continued to copy data accross my lan at 400-500mbps. Try another port on the router.

ALL SORTED :) The Voyager guys were awesome. Spent ages with me on the phone and they worked it out (technical stuff I don't understand).

103mb down and 24 mb up. I am very happy.  

Thanks everyone here for the advice.

nzpaul:

 

sbiddle:

 

93Mbps is a fairly certain indicator of a 100Mbps FE capable device (as it's all you can do over 100Mbps Ethernet) or dodgy cable. What type of router are you using and how is it connected?

 

 

I am using a Mikrotik RB951G-2HnD. It should easily handle routing far more than 100mb ethernet.

 

One  cat6 cable to the ONT to the router, one cat6 cable to my computer. Low CPU load on router during speed test. 

 

RB951 and 951G are very low spec devices.

I would certainly never use one for anything more than a 100Mbps connection as it's really easy to bog down to ~50Mbps tops once you start adding complex firewall rules or loading it up with lots of traffic. If you're not using PPPoE you can use Fastpath to improve performance.