Airport Extreme and Cox Internet IPv6 Problem

At this moment, my understanding is that there are no IPv6 sites anywhere in the world yet anyway, so yes hipsterpdx I don't see how or why changing to local-link would affect anything much. However, I don't discount that people on here are saying that their speeds suddenly went down - I think it could be true, but I have not experienced that.

My Zoom modem is the 5341 model it doesn't have an H or J on it, but the box says it is up to 172 Mbps. As I mentioned, I have the Netgear CM400 available which is rated to 340 Mbps.

At this moment I got about 132 Mbps down / about 13 Mbps up on the hardwired IMax.

An iphone 6 plus sitting right next to the iMac on wifi got the same or better speeds.

But the far away iMac on WiFi got only about 27 Mbps down and about 9 up. An iPad Pro right next to that iMac got the same on WiFi.

Gino_Cerullo last night Cox actually had me disconnect the Time Capsule and hard wire modem directly to the iMac, but speeds were the same no better no worse. Still shooting for 150 Mbps or better. I may just stick that newer Netgear modem on there and call Cox to configure it see if it makes any difference.

This is a lot of time and energy many of us are spending on something that should not be an issue!

I know u realize there are a lot more variables via wi-fi like interference and configuration (I know you mentioned you were 10 feet away)....also, do u have any other wireless access points in your house (if so, how are they configured)....? I have 1 Airport Extreme config'd as main router, plus 3 additional airport extremes (hard wired to ethernet) setup in bridge mode, create new wireless network, with same name, security settings and password to create roaming network.

On the wired side, ideally, clean single line, no splitters coax from cable company to house (i have on coax only for internet), no splitters or daisy chaining, direct line into cable modem with clean connection on each end, CAT 5e or CAT 6 to Router, from there if you need ports for ethernet drops I like the Netgear GB ProSafe switches..also, make sure any ethernet endpoints are clean (can impact speeds if not terminated correctly or worn).....bottom line, as few points of failure as possible on the "wired" side....

Finally, cable internet has frequent issues with noise...and hard for cable companies to trace....so if you are slow (best to check by directly plugging in to cable modem), could be noise issue...get the cable tech out, have them check in your house AND at the pole. Insist you have as direct of a feed as possible from the pole your house 🙂......

CromeYellow wrote:

At this moment, my understanding is that there are no IPv6 sites anywhere in the world yet anyway, so yes hipsterpdx I don't see how or why changing to local-link would affect anything much. However, I don't discount that people on here are saying that their speeds suddenly went down - I think it could be true, but I have not experienced that.

Actually, that's not quite correct. It is true that there are no major web sites that are IPv6 only, (there are some experimental ones however,) but many major sites are running in dual-stack mode (or experimenting with it anyway) meaning that they are accessible with both IPv4 and IPv6.

As we transition from IPv4 to IPv6 we will all be running in dual-stack modes on our own networks as well and we will be running that way for the foreseable future.

Plus, since we ran out of IPv4 addresses in North America (and other areas around the world are very low as well) some ISPs are resorting to Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) to stretch-out the few addresses they have left. CGNAT introduces a number of problems making it a very undesirable solution.

Update!

I connected the newer Netgear CM400 modem (rated to 340), had Cox provision it and now I am getting about 169 Mbps down / 14 mbps up on the hardwired iMac, about 141 / 12 on the iPhone via WiFi sitting next to the hardwired iMac, and on the far away iMac and iPad Pro via WiFi speeds went up some too, to about 32 /10.

The Cox guy kept saying basically that "Apple went too far, too fast" lol and that the rest of the world isn't on IPv6 yet.

This Cox Premier internet plan is 150 /10, so I am getting better than that via hardwire. I guess when it comes to even the latest Airport Extremes which I have even via 802.11ac a few hundred feet away and even with relaying the signal speed drops by 80%.

Also this Cox guy was saying that my signal to my modem is right where it is supposed to be. I have no splitter between the wall and the modem, however he said that yes, I do have splitters in the line somewhere between the street / house / this outlet. However, he said that contrary to what people think splitters are not always a bad thing. He said that sometimes the signal frequency can get too high and that a resistor or splitter on the line can actually bring the signal to where it should be for the modem to run optimally. In others words that what signal and frequency your modem is finally getting is what matters more than the route taken on the way to it.

Anyway, this works hope it sticks. I cancelled the Cox tech appointment.

---

CaptainBlue if your Mac is getting the speed it should hardwired from the Time Capsule, then it is not a Cox issue, is it? I don't know why your WiFi is so slow right next to the TC that does not make sense to me. But WiFi is slower than hardwired always it seems, especially the farther away you get from the main transmitting router.

Your AirPort router is not the issue!

I have an AirPort Time Capsule 802.11ac with a 250/20 connection from my ISP and these are my speeds on IPv6 using Wi-Fi from a MacBook Pro.

Well what would you suggest. I mean, I have the advertised speeds at the hard wired iMac, and a little slower speeds if right in the same room as the Time Capsule, including with a latest model MacBook Pro, but much slower speeds if far away or upstairs even with intervening Airport Extreme boosters. All TC and AP Extremes are the latest models.

One thing I thought of is that I have wireless 1.9 and 2.4 Ghz phones all over the place, multiple phone lines, maybe they interfere, although supposedly the 1.9 do not interfere. But these Apple devices are supposed to be dual band.

And all kinds of devices sucking up that Wifi - three TiVos, and multiple iPads and at least one iPhone always on, plus a printer on the WiFi network.

I'd love to get over 100 mbps on the wifi far away from the TC (or even just upstairs in far corner of the main house) but just doesn't seem to be possible even with the three AP Extremes spread around strategically and set to bridge.

CromeYellow wrote:

CaptainBlue if your Mac is getting the speed it should hardwired from the Time Capsule, then it is not a Cox issue, is it? I don't know why your WiFi is so slow right next to the TC that does not make sense to me. But WiFi is slower than hardwired always it seems, especially the farther away you get from the main transmitting router.

I know that interference, distance, etc can effect wireless performance. My point is this;

IPv6 - Automatically : Wired speed = 150-170Mbps, Wireless speed = 150-170Mbps (within a reasonable distance)

IPv6 - Link-local only : Wired speed = 150-170Mbps, Wireless speed = 1-60Mbps (within the same reasonable distance)

None of my hardware, environment, or services have changed. Only the IPv6 setting as suggested by Cox. Since changing this setting, wireless speeds are jumping all over the place making many wireless tasks (such as gaming/streaming) next to impossible. It was almost more convenient to reset the Time Capsule every day with IPv6 set to Automatically than it is to deal with such inconsistent wireless performance.

I assume you have a Time Capsule with 802.11ac and both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies. Note, the 5GH frequency has less interference - would not interfere with 2.4GHz.....also note that when you are extending signal using an Airport Express - you do not get "c" - I recall it takes your entire network to 801.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n (no "c")....that is why I used Airport Extremes (more $) to extend my network (not airport express)

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/160837-what-is-802-11ac-and-how-much-faster -than-802-11n-is-it

Point being, pay close attention to your core network, switches (get GB), cable (Cat5e or 6) and configuration....

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest anything except that the AirPort routers are capable of much higher speeds. They can support Gigabit speeds if an ISP was providing it. If you are getting the advertised speed (or close to it) at the ethernet connected iMac you can't ask for any more than that.

I have nothing but Airport Extremes (ME918LL/A - three of them) and one Time Capsule (ME182LL/A), all dual band, 802.11ac all the latest models (from 2014). And as noted via hardwire TC to iMac getting in the 170s down / in the 14s up, which is higher than advertised for my Cox plan.

The connecting WiFi devices are all the latest ipad pro, latest retina iMacs, iphone 6 plus, latest retina mac book pro.

Not much more I can do.

So this morning, since I had some time to kill, I went ahead and switched to Google DNS and turned iPv6 back on, but before doing do I ran Cox's speed test. I have the Premier Plan and a new Arris (Motorola) SB6182 modem. Speeds before reconfiguring were 125.83 mbps UP and 11.71 mbps DOWN. After reconfiguring to Google DNS and turning the iPv6 back on, my speeds are 166.26 mbps DOWN (16 mbps above advertised max, go figure) and 11.87 mbps DOWN. It may only be my imagination; however, pages certainly seem to load faster. We'll see how stable this is over the next few days and if the connection drops off line as before. It was stable, but slow using local link only.

@BradPurvis / thanks for sharing / my guess is the performance increase is due to changing DNS. Did you try local link only with GOOGLE DNS?

As posted earlier - i think you will find that you will have to change setting to local link only for stability - but can chose DNS.

Some interesting comments here:

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27370057

Brad Purvis wrote:

So this morning, since I had some time to kill, I went ahead and switched to Google DNS and turned iPv6 back on, but before doing do I ran Cox's speed test. I have the Premier Plan and a new Arris (Motorola) SB6182 modem. Speeds before reconfiguring were 125.83 mbps UP and 11.71 mbps DOWN. After reconfiguring to Google DNS and turning the iPv6 back on, my speeds are 166.26 mbps DOWN (16 mbps above advertised max, go figure) and 11.87 mbps DOWN. It may only be my imagination; however, pages certainly seem to load faster. We'll see how stable this is over the next few days and if the connection drops off line as before. It was stable, but slow using local link only.

Interesting comparison with my own experience here in the same city: Williamsburg, VA. I have been operating trouble-free for the past three weeks since I had a short series of offline cases which caused my contributions to this forum (above) then. Throughout I have been able to use Cox and Apple default settings (Cox DNS and Airport Utility 1pv6 Auto, etc.) while Brad Purvis has had continuing problems in our same city, and had to apply the Link-Local, Google DNS, etc., patches.

My modem is my own Arris WBM 760, my Time Capsule is four months old, and I am using Cox's internet "Preferred Plan" (reliably 50-60 Mbps with no degradation). Note, I am attaching a screenshot of my 1pv6 Connectivity, which shows 10/10. Frankly I don't know how significant this is to the problem so many are experiencing, but here it is.

This post is not intended to show who is right or wrong. Mine works with no special settings while others have had all kinds of problems requiring patches. Everyone has had to do what they need to to make their systems work. I only report my experience here as part of the continuing education we are all getting about this problem. Thanks to you all for helping the rest of us to understand.

.

That's very interesting Jimpal. What is the firmware version of your AirPort Time Capsule. I believe the latest version is 7.7.3, at least according to mine.

Gino_Cerullo wrote:

That's very interesting Jimpal. What is the firmware version of your AirPort Time Capsule. I believe the latest version is 7.7.3, at least according to mine.

My Time Capsule is 7.7.3 as well.