FTTP (Openreach/BT), PPPoE, Netgate APU 1D 4 running pfSense - Speed issue

[theretrobristolian]

Hi All,

Hope everyone reading this are safe and well, this is my first post here so hopefully I've popped it in the right place.

I'm running a Netgate APU1D 4 (4GB) pfSense firewall that I've actually had for a significant amount of time now. I purchased it back in 2015. (I'm UK based)

I think the specs are as below:
CPU: AMD G-T40E
RAM: 4GB
SSD: 108 GB (2 GB used) - overkill I know but I had it lying around.
Originally the install was on an SD card and eventually I somehow moved it to the SSD back in 2017/2018.
3 10/100/1000 NICs (1 for WAN, 1 for LAN, 1 unused)

For 3 years now I've been with Virgin Media and the service has always been terrible, virgin hub in modem only mode, lots of issues with their service. 2 weeks ago finally FTTP/FTTH became available in our area and I booked the day after it went live. checking the website I've noticed the price has already dropped by £10 a month if I'd of only waited 2 weeks, but I wanted to get it booked!

Yesterday the Openreach engineer came out and did the install, the day before that I'd pulled all the old BT copper out of the house to the back wall, ran ducts etc etc to make the install as painless as possible as I have a comms cabinet with all my networking equipment in. I've also recently upgraded to the Ubiquiti Unifi USW Pro 24 switches as they have SFP+ for a 10Gb uplink to my garage over an OM3 fibre cable I buried some years ago (but could never get working on my old HP switches. These switches are proving to be a nightmare with VLANs but that is a side subject.

I have ordered BT FTTP which is 900Mb Down and 110Mb Up with a 700Mb Stay Fast Guarantee. we were previously on Virgin M350 with effective 300Mb down and about 30Mb Up - so you could argue this is a massive improvement and hopefully has less latency and higher reliability and stability.

Once Openreach was done with the fibre install I plugged in the BT router fresh out of the box, and a LAN cable to my MacBook Pro 2022 model (M1 Pro). I'm pleased to say it instantly had 912Mb Down and 49Mb Up with an 11ms ping. Within an hour or 2 it became 912Mb Down and 103Mb Up with a 10ms ping.

Once I was happy the speeds seemed to be there I unplugged everything and set about moving back to the pfSense box. I understand that BT use PPPoE for their WAN connection and you need to use:

Username: bthomehub@btbroadband.com
Password: BT

and I've set this in IPv4 mode and have not set the MTU or MSS as leaving it blank seemed to allow it to auto configure. I know some say you should set this. I wondered can I set pfSense up with an IPv6 mode WAN?

after a lot of messing about on the same Mac connected to the Unifi switch, connected to the LAN port of the pfSense box, I'm getting 540Mb Down and a 100Mb Up with a 12ms ping. I'm actually quite happy with this, it's a lot better than the Virgin line was, but obviously it's not at the full capability of the line or service we're paying for.

THE QUESTION: Is there any settings I can tweak to get this up to capacity or is my actual hardware not up to modern standards and able to deliver this throughput?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts