In reply to a post by SteveBushell999:

I am as eager as anyone here to find out what will make it work, and the whole Apple versus the rest of the world is clearly interesting to say the least! Perhaps if I make my Mac dual boot via Bootcamp, so the same hardware is involved, but it runs Windows, might that give us any more info?

It might tell us if the issue is hardware or software. In our conversations one of our Tech Support Engineers mentioned that in the early days of testing FTTP we had an issue with slow speeds on windows that was not there when running a a live boot of Ubuntu on the same PC. I'm assuming that was difference in the TCP stack, though still trying to find any documents they have from the time to see what the underlying cause was.
I'll email you later with a update of where we are, and what our next steps are. Just got to get my boy sorted for bed first.

Yes, the TCP stack thing came to my mind too, guess it will eliminate that..... I do have a spare Mac mini here, will look at dual booting prospects for that later tonight, I think it has two hard drives in it, so may be simple. I do have to say that almost certainly the Fritz and Technicolor routers are likely to be running some port of Linux, but I will look at the possibility of dual boot Mac anyway.

I actually think that my confusion with all this is being exonerated! But I simply need a solution. The other very worrying thing is that simply getting a result on Fast.com is no reliable indicator of real world large file transfer speeds!

Good luck with getting your son to bed, my days of all that are long gone... More's the pity !

Edited by SteveBushell999 (Tue 03-May-22 18:54:44)

The other very worrying thing is that simply getting a result on Fast.com is no reliable indicator of real world large file transfer speeds!

Very unreliable Steve - you may as well use a random number generator 😂

To be clear…. All my statements (in the past) that ‘it’s fine on PPPOE’ actually mean ‘It’s fine on PPPOE ON A MAC’ - and that (it seems) is somewhat significant, as it’s no indication that it’s fine on anything else? This is a Rabbit Warren ! And each hole leads into a mire, full of tar and treacle. I can’t stop thinking that it was all FINE before GEA migration… MAYBE that is a coincidence, but it’s one hell of one.

In reply to a post by hazey_flakes:

In reply to a post by SteveBushell999:

I am as eager as anyone here to find out what will make it work, and the whole Apple versus the rest of the world is clearly interesting to say the least! Perhaps if I make my Mac dual boot via Bootcamp, so the same hardware is involved, but it runs Windows, might that give us any more info?

It might tell us if the issue is hardware or software. In our conversations one of our Tech Support Engineers mentioned that in the early days of testing FTTP we had an issue with slow speeds on windows that was not there when running a a live boot of Ubuntu on the same PC. I'm assuming that was difference in the TCP stack, though still trying to find any documents they have from the time to see what the underlying cause was.
I'll email you later with a update of where we are, and what our next steps are. Just got to get my boy sorted for bed first.

There is differences in a few ways between Windows and Apple's OS, the auto tuning aspect of the receive window, the congestion window configuration and the implementation of cheats to get by slow start. The latter doesnt conform to RFC but is practice now commonly used by the big vendors. I think there is a lot of similarities to BSD's network stack on Apple's OS if I remember correctly but I am not a Apple OS user so have no actual direct experience of it.

Well, this is getting extremely interesting, and I think we are getting quite near to both a solution and an understanding.

My connection to the ONT is declared 'good' because my Mac sees 560 down / 70 up (the up never seems to be the issue). OpenReach therefore uninterested. However, anything else (router, Windows PC etc) sees zillions of disconnects, and reports speeds of between 15-130Mbps down. Oh, and to back up my claims on the Mac, it gives correct Fast.com speeds, as well as downloading from UseNet at believable speeds (350-500Mbps).

Of course, as soon as anything but a Mac (TimeCapsule) router gets in the middle, then everything goes awry. So, does Zen and Openreach support Macs? Or put another way, do they support Windows? !!!

There are other twists to this, around running a dual boot Mac with Bootcamp, where LANside, I see speeds of 160+Mbps on OSX compared to around 25Mbps on Windows.

I foresee the Mac versus Windows wars restarting!

And, regarding differences, OSX came from BSD, but has evolved, and so does Windows, but also has evolved. I suspect that those evolutions may well be different.

Upshot is that it seems I am to be UN-GEA migrated.... soon.

I will update

I suppose you need to really wait until your are back on BTW backhaul to see what difference that makes and whether your issues are coincidental or causal to that change.

Totally agree, that will be the final thing, but whatever that outcome, the issues around OR declaring lines OK when tested on Mac vs Windows remain don't they?

It’s been generally well known for some time that the increasing prevalence of high speed broadband connections (above 500 Mbps or so) often highlights the relative inadequacies in (especially older) networking in windows-based machines.

Linux distros and MacOS tend to have less issues with their network stack and also suffer from less complications and additional processor load as a result of how some AV software further complicate and interfere in the windows network stack. This is why many ISP support teams call for booting into say Ubuntu to take at least that variable out of the equation.

Fine.... EXCEPT for the fact that the support guy who came yesterday brought his shiny, tested, recent Windows 10 machine, and it was rubbish! Around 19Mbps - OK, so there is a 'fault' - perhaps, but it shows that even a modern Windows box is way worse (as far as network performance and real-world downloads etc) are concerned. So, is what I see on the Mac 'right'? or what was seen on Windows yesterday, or what is seen on a (presumably) Linux kernel router right? What? !!!

It's not ideal !