Good afternoon, everyone! For about the past month, we have been getting kicked off of our internet connection and we can’t figure out why. Our internet is through Comcast and we steadily have a 500-600mps connection. Our modem is an Arris Surfboard 6183 and the router is an ASUS GT-AX11000. I work for a call center, so I’m on voip all day. My wife has to jump on Zoom calls every now and then, but her daily work isn’t too demanding on bandwidth. We both connect to our respective employers’ networks through their VPNs. We also have my cell phone, a couple of XBoxes, and our TVs connected to the network, but those do not really get used while we are working. I’ve opened up IT tickets with my employer that have gotten nowhere. The only solution I’ve found, so far, is unplugging my modem/router, waiting a minute, then plugging everything back in. Even after doing that, the problem still arises. I can’t quite pinpoint if there is a specific time when we get kicked.
I’m wondering if anyone can share some tips as to any router settings I can configure. The router I’ve got has a lot of bells and whistles, all of which I am unfamiliar with. Can anyone give some recommendations on settings I should be enabling when two people are working from home for two different companies?
UPDATE (7/4/2024): Thank you everyone for all of your input. Last weekend, I played around and followed your suggestions. The main thing was getting a new modem (Arris SB8200). I also messed around with assigning IPs to our devices through my router, ultimately removing that designation from my work device and keeping it on my spouse’s. I think it was just a simple hardware upgrade that was needed, as our first three days at work went by smoothly. It was a low traffic week, given the holiday. I cannot express just how valuable this learning experience was for me, as I am a long time lurker of Reddit, but never actually posted for advice. This sub truly taught me the value of just asking for help. My wife and I wish you all a very Happy and Safe 4th! (for those who celebrate)
Your first step should be to check the Asus router logs. See here for more details https://www.asus.com/us/support/faq/1044954/#a1 Google the error messages you see. Next step if still unresolved is to check modem logs.
You could also consider connecting directly via Ethernet to the modem and see if issues persist.
Final step is to call your ISP.
It smells like your equipment is crashing under load. It would either be your router or modem. It could be due to a weak power brick (inadequate wattage), software fault, or a hardware failure.
I’d aim to swap out the gear one piece at a time in hopes of isolating the issue.
VPN can be problematic through NAT. However, if the VPN type utilizes either UDP (or TCP shudder) as transport protocols, this is usually not an issue. The trouble starts when its a protocol without port numbers (ESP, AH, GRE). There are differences between NAT implementations, so that if you and your wife is on two different IP’s on the LAN side, and connect to two different IP’s on the internet, then some NAT implementations would see the difference (assuming you both use same VPN transport protocol), and differentiate just fine. But others, will have the first VPN connection get trampled by the second VPN connection (not differentiate).
If you have 2 routers doing NAT on the path (like some people use an extra router as a wireless extender, or they are behind NAT at the router and CGNAT at the provider), then this could break VPN connections in similar ways (hard to differentiate VPN connections). Avoid having 2 NAT routers in the path at all cost.
So two VPN connections is hard for NAT routers, and can break in frustrating ways, seemingly out of nowhere. But there is rhyme and reason behind it. Also auto-reconnecting VPNS can confuse your debugging process, just a tip. If either you or your wife uses IPSec, ask if NAT-T (NAT-Traversal IPSec transport mode) is enabled, as that will encapsulate the ESP/AH into UDP.
Yeah your modem is a rather old model, you will want to check with your ISP and see what DOCSIS3.1 Modems are compatible with their system and your particular level of service and replace your Modem.
First, the 500-600 Mbps you refer to will be download speed. Cable Internet service is asymmetric, so your upload speeds likely are in the vicinity of 35 Mbps. This may impact concurrent VoIP calls, video conferencing, and VPN service.
Second, as others have suggested, your router may not be up to the task. You may want to consider upgrading to a better router, possibly a business class router that supports QoS.
The Arris SURFboard 6183 as well is only DOCSIS 3.0. Arris states the following for the SB6183…
Wired Speeds: Up to 1 Gbps
Best for Cable Internet Speed Plans: Up to 400 Mbps
DOCSIS Technology: DOCSIS 3.0
If you have a gigabit plan, you may want to consider upgrading to a SURFboard SB8200, which has the following specs…
It could be a lot of things, including just the router not being smart enough to deal with it.
Some basic things to check:
Is the router’s firmware up to date?
Have you enabled things like PPTP passthrough and/or other VPN enabling features?
Try a different brand router, such as TP-Link Omada router, or even skip up to something like Mikrotik or Unifi. (Unifi is overkill, though, and requires a controller, which is a bit of work to set up the first time.)
Some things outside of the obvious:
Order a second IP address from Comcast (if they offer this.) You’d need a second router and a small Ethernet switch between the routers and the modem. One of you uses the second router, and your VPN streams don’t cross.
Get a second network, something like Verizon LTE or a T-Mobile hotspot (If you already have Verizon, you can get a discount on a home LTE line.)
I ran into this with my work and remote setup. It turned out to be the IP address, my IT guy went into the settings and changed the IP address ending number to 2. He told me there was a conflict going on somehow and that when changing this it eliminates the issue and I never had the issue again. Maybe this will help you or you can ask your IT guy to adjust your IP address.
Smart switch. See if yours has smart switching on. This means you’ll have 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz band in one. It then “smart switches” when it sees one “busy” or “noisy”.
When we started to work from home during Covid, we hadn’t turned the spare room into the office yet so was stuck downstairs on the big table with my partner. During the day, I’d be connected to servers and suddenly loose connection for about a min or 2. I couldn’t ask IT as I am IT but it wasn’t affecting my partner. Was happening regularly round the same time.
That was when I discover the FING annoying smart switching on Virgin’s router. I realised the drop outs was it “smart switching” and our Direct Access VPN couldn’t cope so would drop you for over a min. Once I disabled it and split the WIFI out to the two bands, it stopped doing it.
4 years later, finally dumped Virgin for a new provider. Got my own router and turned smart switching off on that as well.
I operate several networks and we see people having issues with VPN when they are on our CG-NAT product. It can usually be fixed with port forwarding or passing them a public IP.
CG-NAT could be part of the issue or if you are on a public IP already, you might consider creating DHCP reservations/static IP assignments on your home router mapped to your device and your wife’s device that are trying to VPN. Also ensure your VPNs aren’t using the same source/dest ports.
I’m glad that you posted this because I was considering connecting my old Nighthawk router to the ASUS router and having each of our work computers hardwired into one router each. Seemed a bit overkill, to be honest. What you mentioned about the second VPN trampling the initial VPN, now that I think about it, that may be what’s happening because I’m usually the first one connected. It may be when my wife connects where the interference starts in my end. Sometimes we make it through, but most of the time, we both get booted as a result. This is a wonderful comment. Thank you!