Why am I getting faster bandwidth when running a VPN than without?

So, when I run a network speed test (I've tried several of them, they
are all showing the same thing), my upload and download speeds are
approximately 10x faster when I got a VPN running, rather than when I
have no VPN running? It's obviously completely counter-intuitive. Do you
think the ISP is doing bandwidth throttling, and using the VPN
disengages that?

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:
So, when I run a network speed test (I've tried several of them, they
are all showing the same thing), my upload and download speeds are
approximately 10x faster when I got a VPN running, rather than when I
have no VPN running? It's obviously completely counter-intuitive. Do you
think the ISP is doing bandwidth throttling, and using the VPN
disengages that?

Â*Â*Â*Â*Yousuf Khan

That's quite a vast difference. I can see your concern.
I know ISPs who'll throttle torrents, I know ISPs and DNSs who'll block
sites like PirateBay. But to have an across-the-board difference like
that suggests something else; something applied to you personally.

Is your ISP contract capped?
Do you use a static IP address?

Get in touch with your ISP, and talk with them.
Alternatively, just stick with your VPN.

Ed

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...

So, when I run a network speed test (I've tried several of them, they are
all showing the same thing), my upload and download speeds are
approximately 10x faster when I got a VPN running, rather than when I have
no VPN running? It's obviously completely counter-intuitive. Do you think
the ISP is doing bandwidth throttling, and using the VPN disengages that?

Yousuf Khan


Don't have any idea other than the VPN connects to a site a lot closer to
the transmit site of your service provider.
I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower. -- ie: 98
mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.
What kind of speeds are you talking about since 10x 10 mbs would be only 100
mbs but 10x 100 mbs would be 1gbs.
Buffalo

On 5/7/2020 7:21 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
That's quite a vast difference. I can see your concern.
I know ISPs who'll throttle torrents, I know ISPs and DNSs who'll block
sites like PirateBay. But to have an across-the-board difference like
that suggests something else; something applied to you personally.

Is your ISP contract capped?
Do you use a static IP address?

No, I have an unlimited account, no static IP.

Get in touch with your ISP, and talk with them.
Alternatively, just stick with your VPN.


They are a bit screwed up right now with the pandemic.

Yousuf Khan

On 5/7/2020 10:31 AM, Buffalo wrote:
Don't have any idea other than the VPN connects to a site a lot closer
to the transmit site of your service provider.
I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower.Â* --
ie: 98 mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.
What kind of speeds are you talking about since 10x 10 mbs would be only
100 mbs but 10x 100 mbs would be 1gbs.
Buffalo

Downloads 7 mbps without VPN, 68 mpbs with VPN. I'm subscribed to their
75 mpbs unlimited plan.

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...

On 5/7/2020 10:31 AM, Buffalo wrote:
Don't have any idea other than the VPN connects to a site a lot closer to
the transmit site of your service provider.
I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower. --
ie: 98 mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.
What kind of speeds are you talking about since 10x 10 mbs would be only
100 mbs but 10x 100 mbs would be 1gbs.
Buffalo

Downloads 7 mbps without VPN, 68 mpbs with VPN. I'm subscribed to their 75
mpbs unlimited plan.

OK , thanks for that info . That might help someone get you a decent answer/
I guess the speed is actually listed as Mbps and not mbs as I wrongly wrote
it.
Can you use the same Server for both tests?
--
Buffalo

In article , Buffalo
wrote:

I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower. -- ie: 98
mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.

your vpn provider could be overselling their service, they might be
limiting it at their end, and/or your vpn endpoint can't keep up.

In response to what nospam wrote :

I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower. -- ie: 98
mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.

your vpn provider could be overselling their service, they might be
limiting it at their end, and/or your vpn endpoint can't keep up.

Perhaps these purposefully helpful suggestions may help...
c: tracert google.com or tracert 192.168.5.5
c: speedtest-cli
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/speedtest-cli-windows.png.pagespeed.ce.sLjEyWMWRH.png

I never claim to be a networking expert, and, worse, I have not seen what
Yousuf Khan appears to see, where my experience has been quite the opposite
(and I'm switching between literally thousands of random VPN servers all
day, every day for privacy purposes, just as my newsreader, and timezone,
and other identifying information are randomized while on the Internet).

However...

If I try to make sense of what Yousuf Khan sees, I would ask that he look
perhaps more closely at the disparity (if any, but often huge) between
upload and download speeds, as "bandwidth" can be considered to be a
combination.

o How to Test Your Internet Speed from the Command Line
https://www.howtogeek.com/179016/how-to-test-your-internet-speed-from-the-command-line/

Further trying to ascertain why Yousuf Khan might see what he sees, what
nsopam says could be important also, so I would ask Yousuf to run a few
"trace routes", which may explain (perhaps) some of the descrepancies...

o How to run a Traceroute on windows 10
https://www.how2shout.com/how-to/how-to-run-a-traceroute-on-windows-10.html

I'm sure there are other debugging methods those who know more about
networking than I do can suggest for the OP.
--
Every thread should increase our tribal technical knowledge on Usenet.

Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 5/7/2020 10:31 AM, Buffalo wrote:
Don't have any idea other than the VPN connects to a site a lot closer
to the transmit site of your service provider.
I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower.Â* --
ie: 98 mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.
What kind of speeds are you talking about since 10x 10 mbs would be
only 100 mbs but 10x 100 mbs would be 1gbs.
Buffalo

Downloads 7 mbps without VPN, 68 mpbs with VPN. I'm subscribed to their
75 mpbs unlimited plan.

Curiouser and curiouser, like Alice down the rabbit hole.
I'm beginning to suspect a router problem here.
Did you set up some port forwarding recently? Perhaps when you set up
the VPN network?
If I suspected anything like that on my system, I'd start over; remove
the VPN and reset the router.

WE need lots more info from you to go further.
And don't make it ambiguous as with your "subscribed to their 75 mpbs
unlimited plan".
Is that your ISP, or your VPN deal?

Ed

In response to what Ed Cryer wrote :

And don't make it ambiguous as with your "subscribed to their 75 mpbs
unlimited plan".

On just that point of the "subscribed to", even then, it's only "up to"...

That's why I gave the OP a command-line speedtest...

It can be scripted to run every hour, for example.

And averaged.

Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 5/7/2020 10:31 AM, Buffalo wrote:
Don't have any idea other than the VPN connects to a site a lot closer
to the transmit site of your service provider.
I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower.Â* --
ie: 98 mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.
What kind of speeds are you talking about since 10x 10 mbs would be only
100 mbs but 10x 100 mbs would be 1gbs.
Buffalo

Downloads 7 mbps without VPN, 68 mpbs with VPN. I'm subscribed to their
75 mpbs unlimited plan.

Did you ever question why your normal download speed was so slow?

I know you've tried several test sites, but have you tried a real world
download? For example try downloading an Ubuntu ISO image and see what
Firefox reports as the download rate.

On 5/7/2020 11:24 AM, Buffalo wrote:
OK , thanks for that info . That might help someone get you a decent
answer/
I guess the speed is actually listed as Mbps and not mbs as I wrongly
wrote it.
Can you use the same Server for both tests?

Yes, in some of the test sites you can choose from specific servers.
Which server you pick doesn't actually have as much effect as when
you're using the VPN vs. not.

Yousuf Khan

On 5/7/2020 11:27 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Buffalo
wrote:

I use Xfinity and with my VPN it is approximately 5 times slower. -- ie: 98
mbs with VPN on and approx 500 mbs without the VPN on.

your vpn provider could be overselling their service, they might be
limiting it at their end, and/or your vpn endpoint can't keep up.

This is the behaviour I would have expected on my end. Of course, I
don't have a 500 Mbps service like the user Buffalo does. I suspect my
VPN wouldn't be able to keep up with a 500 Mbps connection, but it has
no trouble matching my 75 Mbps connection.

Yousuf Khan

On 5/7/2020 11:42 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
Perhaps these purposefully helpful suggestions may help...
c: tracert google.com or tracert 192.168.5.5
c: speedtest-cli

https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/speedtest-cli-windows.png.pagespeed.ce.sLjEyWMWRH.png


I never claim to be a networking expert, and, worse, I have not seen what
Yousuf Khan appears to see, where my experience has been quite the opposite
(and I'm switching between literally thousands of random VPN servers all
day, every day for privacy purposes, just as my newsreader, and timezone,
and other identifying information are randomized while on the Internet).

However...

If I try to make sense of what Yousuf Khan sees, I would ask that he look
perhaps more closely at the disparity (if any, but often huge) between
upload and download speeds, as "bandwidth" can be considered to be a
combination.

o How to Test Your Internet Speed from the Command Line
https://www.howtogeek.com/179016/how-to-test-your-internet-speed-from-the-command-line/


Further trying to ascertain why Yousuf Khan might see what he sees, what
nsopam says could be important also, so I would ask Yousuf to run a few
"trace routes", which may explain (perhaps) some of the descrepancies...

o How to run a Traceroute on windows 10
https://www.how2shout.com/how-to/how-to-run-a-traceroute-on-windows-10.html


I'm sure there are other debugging methods those who know more about
networking than I do can suggest for the OP.

I'm not sure running tracert's under a VPN will be all that helpful,
because the entire path from end-to-end in the VPN tunnel will be
encrypted, so you won't see any of those hops even if you're making them
in reality.

Yousuf Khan

On 5/7/2020 5:43 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
Curiouser and curiouser, like Alice down the rabbit hole.
I'm beginning to suspect a router problem here.
Did you set up some port forwarding recently? Perhaps when you set up
the VPN network?
If I suspected anything like that on my system, I'd start over; remove
the VPN and reset the router.

Both the VPN and router have been running unaltered for a number of
years already. There was no need for manual port forwardings when the
VPN was originally setup, it is a very standard OpenVPN and IKEv2 type
of VPN software.

WE need lots more info from you to go further.
And don't make it ambiguous as with your "subscribed to their 75 mpbs
unlimited plan".
Is that your ISP, or your VPN deal?

ISP.

Yousuf Khan