How to check for NAT sessions in the 2Wire Gateways

Whenever you come across an issue where any of the 2Wire Gateways seem to have slow internet service, one of the troubleshooting steps to use is checking the NAT (Network Address Translation) Table Sessions within the gateway.

After accessing the MDC and inputting the System Password, choose the tab labeled "Settings" (Screenshot provided below) then to the far right choose "Diagnostics" and finally "NAT".

Under "Current NAT Sessions" you will see real-time data pulled from the gateway with lines and lines of information and code. For this subject we will be observing the "Session table" which is highlighted below.

The NAT sessions is broken down into a simple ratio. Ex. xxx/1024. The 1024 stands for the number of available sessions the gateway provides. To the left of that number is the actual number of sessions that are not being consumed.

So what does a good test result look like? The screenshot shows that the NAT sessions are "980/1024". Whenever you see a number above 800 then it’s good. If you see a number below 800 then that means there is too much Wi-Fi activity going on and you are "choking" your router. The best way to lower this and improve Wi-Fi connection speeds is to reduce this number by limiting the usage of devices on the network at that given time.

On the inbound sessions (Ex. number 5) Ex. xxx/512 the results are for upload speeds. This is for measuring who is connecting to you. For example, Bit Torrenting, Peer-to-peer sharing, etc. will cause this ratio to increase which will result in slower speeds as well. In the screenshot, you'll notice it says "10/512" this a good test result with minimal upload activity. The lower this number is, the better the results for your internet experience because the inbound sessions affect all browsing.

- ATTU-verseCare