Dear GL.iNet Support Team,first of all: thank you very much for creating such a capable and compact travel router with excellent hardware (2.5 Gbps ports, Wi-Fi 7, strong CPU). I really enjoy using the Slate 7 and appreciate the effort that goes into making OpenWrt-based devices accessible to a wider audience.I would like to share my current setup and a performance issue I’m experiencing, in the hope that you might have an idea or could consider it for future firmware improvements.
My current setup:
- GL-BE3600 (Slate 7) running the latest stable firmware
- WAN port (eth0) receives two VLAN-tagged services from upstream:
- VLAN 10 → DSL (Deutsche Telekom, ~250/40 Mbit/s, DHCP client)
- VLAN 20 → Starlink and LTE (via GL-X2000 in bypass mode, DHCP client)
- In LuCI I created two VLAN devices (eth0.10 and eth0.20) and assigned them to the existing interfaces “wan” and “secondwan”
- Multi-WAN is configured in Load Balance mode (not Failover) with a ratio that prefers DSL
- No additional slow 100 Mbit/s devices are connected; only one LAN port is used for testing (laptop directly connected via cable).
The observed problem:
- Download speed through the Slate 7 reaches nearly full DSL performance (~220–240 Mbit/s) only by LAN-port testing. On Wifi, the speed is throttled about 110 Mbit/s down.
- Upload speed is massively throttled to ~3–12 Mbit/s (instead of the expected ~35–40 Mbit/s on DSL or ~20–40 Mbit/s on Starlink) by LAN-port testing. With WiFi testing, I've got full speed.
- The same throttled upload behavior appears in both Load Balance and when forcing Failover to Starlink (DSL cable unplugged)
- When bypassing the Slate 7 completely and connecting the laptop directly to the FritzBox LAN WLAN (DSL only), I get full symmetric performance (~220/37 Mbit/s). Same applies for my Starlink connection on GL-X2000. Both sources are running smoothly. Wired and wirelessly.
root@GL-BE3600:~# ethtool eth0.10
Settings for eth0.10:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
2500baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Supported FEC modes: Not reported
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
2500baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: Transmit-only
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 24
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Link detected: yes
root@GL-BE3600:~# ethtool eth0.20
Settings for eth0.20:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
2500baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Supported FEC modes: Not reported
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
2500baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: Transmit-only
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 24
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Link detected: yes
Why VLANs are essential for me:
I deliberately use VLANs on the single WAN RJ45 port because I want to keep the second physical port free as a normal LAN port for local devices (laptop, NAS, switch, etc.). Having two separate RJ45 WAN ports would be very convenient, but since the hardware only provides one WAN port, VLAN trunking on that port is the only realistic way to realize two independent WAN services without sacrificing LAN connectivity.
My feature request / feedback:
I understand that the Slate 7 is positioned as an end-user travel router and not primarily as an enterprise device. Still, the underlying OpenWrt platform makes it attractive for more advanced users who want to leverage VLANs, custom interfaces and Multi-WAN in non-standard ways. From my perspective it would be a fantastic pro-feature if the GL.iNet middleware (your nice and intuitive web interface) would offer native, first-class support for assigning VLANs directly to WAN interfaces in a way that does not degrade throughput (especially upload).
There already seem to be VLAN-related fields in the UI (e.g. for cellular/tethering use cases), but they appear limited in scope.
I would be very grateful if you could:
- let me know whether this asymmetric upload throttling in Load Balance + VLANs on WAN is a known limitation
- share any configuration tips that might mitigate the issue while keeping VLANs on the WAN port
- consider improving VLAN handling on the WAN port for future firmware versions (better offloading compatibility, MTU/MSS handling, or explicit Load-Balance tuning options)
Thank you very much in advance for your time and support.
I’m happy to provide screenshots, configuration exports or SSH access logs if that helps.
Best regards.
