diff -r f55df977de28 src/point-to-point/helper/point-to-point-helper.cc
--- a/src/point-to-point/helper/point-to-point-helper.cc	Tue Nov 22 10:55:49 2016 +0100
+++ b/src/point-to-point/helper/point-to-point-helper.cc	Thu Nov 24 12:20:33 2016 -0800
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@
 #include "ns3/config.h"
 #include "ns3/packet.h"
 #include "ns3/names.h"
+#include "ns3/uinteger.h"
 #include "ns3/mpi-interface.h"
 #include "ns3/mpi-receiver.h"
 
@@ -38,12 +39,19 @@
 
 NS_LOG_COMPONENT_DEFINE ("PointToPointHelper");
 
+// Device queue set to small default value such as in Linux
+static const uint16_t DEFAULT_MAX_PACKETS = 3;
+
 PointToPointHelper::PointToPointHelper ()
 {
   m_queueFactory.SetTypeId ("ns3::DropTailQueue");
   m_deviceFactory.SetTypeId ("ns3::PointToPointNetDevice");
   m_channelFactory.SetTypeId ("ns3::PointToPointChannel");
   m_remoteChannelFactory.SetTypeId ("ns3::PointToPointRemoteChannel");
+  // XXX this step can be replaced by Config::GetDefault (); see bug 1604
+  Ptr<PointToPointNetDevice> device = m_deviceFactory.Create<PointToPointNetDevice> ();
+  m_queueFactory.Set ("MaxPackets", UintegerValue (DEFAULT_MAX_PACKETS));
+  m_queueFactory.Set ("MaxBytes", UintegerValue (DEFAULT_MAX_PACKETS * device->GetMtu ()));
 }
 
 void