"Originally posted on reddit/whirlpool, reposting here".
Hello everyone. I need some help as I am officially out of ideas and troubleshooted for the whole day. It is long but I will explain all info I have!
I have TPG 1000/50 FTTP in Liverpool NSW here (Sydney). Works well, never had any issues until recently I started to take notice. Now my download is always flawless – ranges from 700-920. No issues at all.
Now I usually regularly ran speedtests and always got around 900/45 or sometimes around 40 upload. Fair enough but recently I run some WireGuard Servers in India and Singapore (India = 40/40, 60/60 symmetrical plans for cheap unlike NBN lol) and Singapore is 100/100 basic from my friend (for like 40 bucks XD). I recently started noticing my upload speeds felt capped at 8mbps on any INTERNATIONAL server OUTSIDE Australia (except New Zealand). I tried, London UK, Los Angeles California, Mumbai India, Singapore and so much more but all cap out around 6-8mbps.
Now moving on to New Zealand, I get around 800 download and 35 mbps upload (tried Auckland and Christchurch).
But every other country I keep getting stopped at like 6-8mbps upload. That is just garbage. I tried connecting directly via WireGuard VPN tunnel to my India and Singapore VPNs, all get full download speeds but 6-8 Mbps upload? What the?
Now some info about my hardware and troubleshooting tests;
1. Router – OPNSense running Intel i7-7700 with Intel I340-T4 Quad NIC Gigabit.
2. Main Switch – Netgear GS308T (Managed Gigabit)
3. WiFi AP – Running ASUS GT-AX11000 as Access Point (this was my main router before OPNsense).
4. I ran all my tests via my desktop Gigabit Intel Ethernet. I also run these tests directly via OPNSense's FreeBSD Speedtest-CLI via SSH – all same results.
5. I then tried my S21 Ultra and Note20 Ultra via WiFi 6, I get full 900/50 as normal to AU Servers (tried Perth, Darwin, sydney, Melbourne, etc.) but again same 6-8 Mbps Upload – same as Ethernet.
6. I setup QOS/OPNSense Traffic Shaper to 40 Mbps WAN Upload (as some people say NBN Policy Limiter kicks in and drops speeds drastically). No luck. I set traffic shaper to 49 Mbps, no difference still getting fast upload to AU servers, all international 6-8 Mbps.
Now, my friend has same plan as me and lives 50m away from me 2 blocks away. He speedtested to exact same servers on speedtest.net and he got around 20Mbps upload. Same ISP, same plan, we got our internet installed together years ago. I also tried using my Telstra 5G, and I got 600/22 Mbps download/upload to all servers.
My uncle living in Parramatta TPG 250/25 plan with HFC, gets solid 23 Mbps to all international servers we tried (surprisingly 3mbps more than my FTTP friend but anyways).
So now I started thinking is my OPNSense at fault? I checked ALL settings, NO speed limiter is applied. Then I removed OPNSense and Directly used my ASUS GT-AX11000 – same results - bad upload on international, full upload in Australia. Then, what I did I got my desktop and hooked it up DIRECTLY to my NBN ONT Alcatel FTTP Box and did PPPoE dial from my PC directly, bypassing all routers. SAME RESULT, no difference! Then I turned off my NBN ONT FTTP Box fully for 60 seconds, rebooted the ONT. No help no fix, same issue.
Now you say this is all speedtest.net issues? I tried fast.com – same problems. I tried UPLOADING files to Google Drive. Now with Google Drive, if I upload without my VPN, I get 45 Mbps download (I presume drive.google.com's load balance takes me to Sydney Google Data Center so no upload cap).
Now I try using my Singapore and India VPN and upload to Google Drive and this time OneDrive + JottaCloud (some cloud providers). Boom 6-8 mbps limit.
At this point I have given up and have no idea what to do? I understand international usually will not give me full speeds as local ones do, but 6 Mbps is unacceptable. Especially when people around me get more than 6 Mbps with worse off equipment.
What can I try here?
