With many ISP's providing access at high speeds, like Google's fiber service, what is the actual throughput with this device? I don't want this to become a bottleneck. Many routers have low throughput with firewal.....and without.
Depends on what you mean by firewall here. If you are referring to the NAT firewall on an AirPort router, that might impose a few percentage points of bandwidth, but chances are, the wireless security will be the main drag.
Some routers from other manufacturers use SPI....Stateful Packet Inspection....which can slow things down up to 50% or more. Apple does not use this type of setting.
The WAN port on the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule is rated at Gigabit Ethernet speeds....1,000 Mbps....so the AirPort can handle just about anything that you can give to it.
The WAN port on the AirPort Express will handle up to 100 Mbps speeds, so if your Internet connection speed is in that range or higher, you would definitely want to use a router with Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Now, if your modem also utilizes a firewall, you will have to take that into account as well.
Just because the WAN port is a gigabit port does not mean the throughput is a gigabit. I appreciate your efforts to provide a response. However, there is a maximum for the throughput and I'm trying to get what that value is. In the past I have purchased a router with a 100 MB WAN port. I experienced performance issues and contacted my ISP. I was paying for 100 MB service, but only seeing about 10 MB performance. As it turns out, with the firewall throughput was only 10 MB.
I couldn't find the specs on my old router, but I found another example and provided an image. You can see where the WAN port is gigabit and they list the firewall throughput at 70 MB and the VPN throughput at 35 MB.
This is why many ISP's will ask you to plug your computer directly into the router when you call to complain about performance. Many times it is the router which is degrading the service. When the speeds weren't that high this wasn't an issue. Now that ISP's are providing faster speeds it is.
Just because the WAN port is a gigabit port does not mean the throughput is a gigabit
I never said that the throughput was Gigabit.
What I said was that the WAN port was rated Gigabit on the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule...and was 100 Mbps on the AirPort Express.
You already know that actual results cannot be known until you test. Test reports typically clock the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule at about 550-600 Mbps, or about 70-75 MBps.
That does not mean to imply that you will get those results....might be more, might be less.
Based on your description of your past issues, it sounds like the WAN port on your router was not negotiating correctly with the modem.
Unfortunately, Apple no longer provides you with the ability to manually configure the WAN port settings, so if that feature is important to you, you should avoid Apple and look at Netgear or Cisco.
To get some comprehensive throughput values for the AirPort routers I would suggest that you go over to the SmallNetBuilders website. They have done some extensive testing and post their findings on a number of manufacturers' models so you can compare.
What is the throughput with firewall active?
