Bandwidth command on router

[Raja_D]

Hi,

There is 1MB mpls link provisioned by the provider,but the branch user reported that he is facing very slow performance in the branch end pc's . Provider confirmed it as 1MB link and when I checked from my end on the branch router, I observed that the bandwidth is configured as 512 which I have changed to 1024 and this made the user applications to perform faster. Actually I am not sure if this command made the difference or not.

Its a 3 com router and configuration is as given below...

interface Ethernet0/2
duplex full
speed 10
ip address 10.26.162 255.255.255.252
load-bandwidth 1024

fyi.. the speed/duplex on the provider end are also set to 10/full.

Is there any way to confirm that the link provisioned is of 1MB link rather than going with the words from the provider where he would state that the link provisioned is of 1MB. likewise how do we do a speedtest on Internet broadband connection at home which confirms the upstream/downstream speed.

As some one from branch wants him to show and prove that the link provisioned is of 1MB. In the above mentioned case, user from branch was really facing slow performance at the branch where initially the branch was 512kb and recently upgraded to 1MB but still he could observe the slow speed performance like as if the branch is operating on 512 kb but when I have made the bandwidth configured to 1024 through above given configuration commands made the difference and he could observe faster performance...

Kindly clarify...

[Richard Burts]

You are asking questions about a 3 com router in a forum oriented to Cisco routers. I can tell you with confidence what it means in a Cisco environment but am not authoritative about whether 3 com does it in the same way. In a Cisco router what really controls the capacity is the speed command which in this case is set to 10. The bandwidth command conveys information about the interface to any software that is interested (for example network monitoring or perhaps QOS) but does not have any control over the behavior of the interface.

HTH

Rick

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

Cannot say for a 3Com router, but on Cisco, changing an interface bandwidth statement wouldn't make any difference to how fast the port will transmit/receive unless somehow a policer or shaper is tied to it.

One way to check whether you're getting your full 1 Mbps, use a traffic generator to saturate the link and see if it passes 1 Mbps.

BTW, what about the HQ/hub side of the link?  Often they have a much bigger connection to a MPLS network, and if so, they might cap their transmission rate to what the far side supports.  If so, you'll want to check whether there was a 512 Kbps cap that was changed to 1 Mbps.