Improving your Network Performance with Firewalla
No one likes a slow, laggy network– not only does it make using the Internet frustrating and inefficient, but it can also get in the way of essential services you need for work, school, and your home.
With Firewalla, you can easily monitor your connections, identify issues, and make your network perform better. Firewalla helps you measure:
Please note that these features are only supported on Firewalla Gold products, Purple products, and the Blue Plus.
Wi-Fi/LAN Performance
The Firewalla app has a built-in Wi-Fi test that you can use to measure LAN speed between your phone and your Firewalla box. It can help you :
- See how fast your LAN really is independent of your ISP service
- Determine if you're placing your mesh or APs in the right places
- Tune your APs
You can see your latest Wi-Fi test results and their settings near the bottom of the Network Performance screen. You can run this test as often as you like– it won't impact any traffic to your ISP if you have a data cap.
WAN Performance
The best network is fast, has low latency, and has no packet loss. Firewalla will test all three of these attributes. These are outlined in the Network Performance summary widget on your box's main page.
Firewalla continuously and automatically tests your WAN connection. A colored bar chart represents the total outage time, max latency, and max packet loss over the last 24 hours. If the bar shows:
- RED: the Internet was down.
- YELLOW: the Internet was unstable or your secondary WAN was down.
- GREEN: your network performance was good.
Notable changes will also trigger a Network Event. You can see a history of these events by navigating to Main App -> Settings -> Events or Network Performance -> Recent Events. Read more about the types of Network Events here: Firewalla Network Events.
Internet Speed Test
Network speed is the throughput between your box and a test server near you.
- You can manually choose which servers to use and which to avoid.
- The network speed test can be run manually or scheduled daily.
- If your speed test results are unexpected, there could be an issue with your ISP. You can provide feedback in-app if there's a test issue.
The Firewalla app will show the Internet speed test results over a 7-day period and provide you with a chart showing your download/upload speeds over time.
To manually adjust your speed test server, tap on Network Performance -> Internet Speed. Then, select one of your previous speed tests and tap on the server. Then, choose:
- Always use this server: To tell Firewalla to always run tests on this server
- Never use this server: To tell Firewalla never to use this server for testing
Server preferences can be managed in Internet Speed -> Server Selection.
Internet Quality: Latency and Packet Loss
When Internet Quality tests are turned on, the Firewalla box will ping a certain target at a selected interval. The test results will be kept for 24 hours, and the app will show you a chart for how your internet quality changes over time.
Latency is the time it takes for you to request and receive information. "Normal" latency depends on a variety of factors, but here are some rough estimates:
- Cable modem: between 5 and 40 ms
- A cellular link: between 200 and 600 ms
Packet loss is when data doesn't arrive at its destination. This can impact the speed and quality of real-time content, such as Zoom meetings or VOIP calls.
If you want to customize these quality tests, go to your WAN Network page, scroll down, tap Test Target, then tap Edit to change either Ping Test Targets or DNS Test Targets. Alternatively, go to Network Performance, tap Internet Quality, tap Test Settings, tap Test Target, then type in a new test target.
This is part of our Firewalla Weekly Newsletter. You can sign up here https://firewalla.com/weekly.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.