Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

msol.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 148 posts

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#111

Post by windexh8er »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #88
windexh8er wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every modem has a finite number of channels it can bond. Up and down are different. Also the CMTS (the device the cable modem connects to) limits the number of bonds per source modem. A piece of coax has a finite amount of bandwidth it can carry. As modulation schemes get better (QAM256) you can do more with less. To say DOCCIS 3 is limitless is not taking into consideration the hardware and frequency constraints. Th…

Yes, and more than a couple of people have observed downstream 16 channel bonding on Comcast. That would be 4 times as many as you cited "Most commonly 4 channel bond on the downstream and 2 on the up", in your post that I failed to reply to.

I have Comcast 100Mb service and have 4 QAM256 bonded downstream right now. I've deployed and managed these networks (as a Comcast subsidiary in fact). 16 down doesn't mean anything other than fragmented frequency usage.

If you have a Motorola cable modem go to: 192.168.100.1 to get to the web UI of your Surfboard. Click on the "Signal" tab at the top. My guess is the majority of people will see 4 x bonded down. Probably 2-3 bonded up using a lesser QAM as well.

Not sure why all the hate - I'm a network engineer who's dealt with these networks and a lot of what's been posted here is incorrect.

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#112

Post by joezydeco »

pseudonym wrote: post #92
joezydeco wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using my own modem, so no wifi hotspot in my home, but I've never been blocked from using another xfinity-wifi AP.

If they have that much trouble taking the flags off of people's accounts, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that there's no codified correlation between "has the AP running" flag and the "is running a Comcast router+modem" flag.

I honestly don't think there's a flag.

I set up service with my own equipment from the start, and after all the account setup I received a dozen notices that all these wifi points were available. It was never specified as a "must have a Comcast router" condition.

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#113

Post by ars »

shmerl wrote: post #86
devicenull wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's weird. Since it defeats the purpose of expanding their WiFi hotspots coverage. If people have capped plans, they are likely to disable that hotspot altogether and use their own routers to begin with, to avoid anyone switching it back on. If they wanted such thing to work, it had to be excluded from both monthly data caps and active bandwidth limit. I think what he's trying to say is that as an individual usi…

> As the person hosting the access point, other people using it does not count towards your cap. Ah, that makes more sense.

It doesn't count toward your bandwidth either. The neighborhood line has much more bandwidth that is allocated to each individual house. So they just allocate double bandwidth to house, and you get 1 of it, and the wifi gets the other.

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#114

Post by [deleted] »

matt_kantor wrote: post #20
antsar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area, there are wireless access points mounted on some telephone poles which provide WiFi hotspots for anyone with credentials from a major local ISP. Apart from that, my understanding is that Comcast routers broadcast your network and also broadcast this comcast hotspot network, and they are metered (and presumably capped) independently. So with this hack you would use only your equipment, you're just taking a…

> So with this hack you would use only your equipment, you're just taking advantage of both networks that are being broadcast by your router. Check the article again. The author is connecting his router to his neighbor's hotspot.

[deleted]

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#115

Post by moron4hire »

FireBeyond wrote: post #84
moron4hire wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the worst. I have more than enough bandwidth for Netflix, but I frequently hot my data cap. I don't think there is such a thing as a comcast account without a data cap.

I pay for a business account (but I work from home). No caps, no torrent or other throttling, no port blocking (back in the days when I ran my own mail server), optional static IPs. But you definitely pay for it.

I might gave to go that route. Thanks for reminding me.

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#116

Post by ars »

mwsherman wrote: post #15

I don't see any benchmarks, did I miss them? I suspect this doesn't double bandwidth, the packets all end up over the same neighborhood network. The only way it would increase bandwidth is if it evades artificial throttles. Having two connections to the same (neighborhood) pipe seems useless.

> The only way it would increase bandwidth is if it evades artificial throttles.

Well obviously. They give you a specific bandwidth for your house, you can buy more or less bandwidth if you want.

> Having two connections to the same (neighborhood) pipe seems useless.

The neighborhood pipe can probably do 100 to 1000 times the bandwidth to each individual house. So how is that useless?

Plus with xfinitywifi they allocate double bandwidth to the house, so the wifi bandwidth doesn't slow down the purchased bandwidth. (The cable modem can easily handle 10 times the bandwidth typically allocated to it.)

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#117

Post by ars »

0x0 wrote: post #16

Doesn't the xfinitiwifi inject ads MITM-style? I recall seeing some weird html overlays with xfinity ads on random web pages last time I browsed over one of these SSIDs.

> Doesn't the xfinitiwifi inject ads MITM-style?

No.

I feel like this post should be longer, but I can't think else to say. The answer to your question is: No.

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#118

Post by ars »

windexh8er wrote: post #28
pat2man wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His connection is probably throttled. This essentially doubles his throttled bandwidth.

Having worked with deployment of these networks (DOCCIS 3) for a Comcast subsidiary I can tell you this is not true. If you have 10Mb the non-guest network is prioritized. But you cannot use more than 10Mbit between the two. As stated, the author has doubled nothing.

Considering that comcast sells up 505 Mbit/s connections your 10Mb claim is demonstrably false.

DOCSIS (not DOCCIS) can do a Gb/s, and that's just to one modem, not the neighborhood as a whole.

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#119

Post by philiplu »

windexh8er wrote: post #111
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and more than a couple of people have observed downstream 16 channel bonding on Comcast. That would be 4 times as many as you cited "Most commonly 4 channel bond on the downstream and 2 on the up", in your post that I failed to reply to.

I have Comcast 100Mb service and have 4 QAM256 bonded downstream right now. I've deployed and managed these networks (as a Comcast subsidiary in fact). 16 down doesn't mean anything other than fragmented frequency usage. If you have a Motorola cable modem go to: 192.168.100.1 to get to the web UI of your Surfboard. Click on the "Signal" tab at the top. My guess is the majority of people will see 4 x bonded down. Prob…

Surfboard 6141 here on Comcast, and the Signal page is showing 8 QAM256 channels downstream, 4 QPSK/64QAM up. Speedtest.net has been showing 125M down/12M up for the past few months, which was a silent bump up from the 75/10 I noticed before that (Seattle Eastside area).

I'm curious how much faith to put in the speedtest numbers. Does Comcast detect speedtest, or is that what I'd really get elsewhere as well?

Re: How I doubled my Internet speed with OpenWRT

#120

Post by Dylan16807 »

icebraining wrote: post #53
andrewhillman wrote: post #47

I just had comcast to my home last week. I pay for 120 mbps but when connected via cat 5 it only reached 90 max mbps which would fine considering when using a wifi router it only reaches around 30 mbps. I have moved around the wifi router but it doesn't make much of a difference. The technician told me the 120 mbps that I am being charged for is for for direct access and wifi won't reach 120mbps. I complained to cust…

I don't see the problem. If you paid for 120 items and you can't carry them in your car, it's not the grocery store's fault, even if "most people" used small cars. If you want to get a better Wifi connection, get a good router and plug it in to the one installed by Comcast.

But the port needs to support the full 120. Cabling problems are on him, but if the builtin wifi can't do 120 to anything, then that's misleading advertising. Wifi is entirely capable of 120, and it's not something you can check until it's already delivered and failing.

If the grocery store makes a big deal out of having staff to carry groceries to your car, and how they sell 120 groceries, they had better be able to carry all 120 to cars that support it.

Post reply on HN