L2TP speeds in WL-520GU and general

[bmn1]

Internet connection over cable here goes thru L2TP in many cases. Does anyone know what's the maximum practical down/up speed the ASUS WL-520GU can handle?

And in general, how much does L2TP affect the WAN speed of routers? What happens when it's reached, just speed barrier or connection problems?

Strangely the Router Finder only comes up with one result when filtering by L2TP. Any idea why?

 

[sk1939]

Let me get this straight, your cable connection uses a VPN protocol to get to your house? I'm sorry, but I have to think that it's wrong. Most likely your cable connection is DHCP.

 

[bmn1]

I think it's not common in general, but it is here. You do get a WAN IP through DHCP, but that's the cableco's internal network. Over that you establish an L2TP connection to the ISP's server.

http://i52.tinypic.com/301g5ld.png

 

[thiggins]

The L2TP filter in the Finder is for routers that have VPN endpoints.

I believe the L2TP you are referring to is the authentication protocol, which is an entirely different thing.

 

[bmn1]

Can you elaborate? How can L2TP be used to authenticate but not afterwards?

I don't know what exactly the router does, but my impression is that the connection is indeed encrypted because at higher speeds over cable ISPs here have the tendency to switch you to DHCP only without L2TP.

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, let me clarify.

L2TP is a VPN tunneling protocol. So an ISP using it (or PPTP or PPPoE) is connecting you via a VPN to its head end. Note that L2TP itself does not encrypt traffic.

The VPN protocols in the Finder are for routers that can originate and terminate VPN tunnels to the router itself.

 

[bmn1]

Is the apparent overhead of L2TP (seeing that ISPs here switch you to DHCP on higher speeds) just due to the encapsulation, even without encryption?

Do you know of any ISPs that do use L2TP/IPsec for connecting users?

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, but don't know the answer to either question.