What should I be thinking about?

1

I am going to be starting a new job in about a month where I will be on Zoom meetings for a good portion of my day.

Besides hardwiring my connection what should I be thinking about to have a worry free day on Zoom and what should I do so I can identify when the problem is mine and someone else?

My current internet connection is a cable connection that runs at 100Mbps down and 30Mbps up

That is going into a Sercom DM1000 with a 2.5 Gbps port

Which goes to a Netgate SG-1100

Everything is going to a D-Link DGS-1100-16 which I have had for 10+ years

I am using a U6-Pro as my access points

In my area I can get connection speeds up to 3.0 Gbps symmetrical via fiber and 1.5 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up via cable connection.

I have choose my current internet connection because I am not after bragging rights, it has been adequate for my families needs.

I think my hope here is, a lesson on how to identifying what is inadequate in my setup and how to quantify problems when they happen.

Thanks for any and all help in advance

2

You probably have nothing to worry about. I have terrible internet service living out in the middle of nowhere and I can operate on a video call all day, stay connected to VPN, etc…WFH isn’t even an issue with modern internet service and this is coming from someone getting sub 100Mbps.

3

There are a few things that you might want to consider.

As you have a managed switch, you can setup a vlan for your work.
On that vlan you can apply some traffic shaping to reduce buffer bloat, Tom had a video on this. This is likely to reduce your latency, you can go to www.fast.com inspect the difference between load and unloaded, the delta shouldn’t be too high.
You can do a test on https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat

Personally I found this helpful.

There might be certain settings you want on your work vlan and not on the rest of the network or vice versa.

4

Another consideration would be having a backup/secondary internet service when the primary one goes down during business working hours. Whether it be using your cellular data service as a temporary hotspot or having a low tier/cost fiber plan to supplement your existing cable internet service. In my area, the cable internet service is relatively stable, but once in a while, it has gone down for several business working hours because of scheduled maintenance or unscheduled fixes.

5

Thanks Neogrid,

This gives me a reason to dig into valns more. I have limited experiance with them and keep on telling myself it is something I should play with.
I have never used the waveform website I am going to have to check them out.

6

Good point Rcpinedi,

I am not paying much for my cable connection, so using fiber as a fail over is an option.
I do have an extra port on my SG-1100 so that is a possibility.

7

You can configure the opt port as another wan port - Netgate 1100 Security Gateway Manual | Netgate Documentation

8

Thanks.

I am taking the 2 ISP suggestion seriously.
I am watching my local fiber providers website on a regular basis waiting for deals that I know they have offered in the past. If nothing comes up shortly I am going to hop on their lowest tier.

I am also walking through the Netgate documentation right now to have my SG-1100 set up ready for it.