Need more speed!

[bchurl 1]

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have the fastest connection available in my city, testing right now at above the promised 50 Mbps on speedtest.net. (like, 57). Immediately after that test I connect to the server showing the fastest recent user speed in my country (someone getting the speed I should have), and my speed tests between 9 and 11 Mbps. Mac Mini Core 2 Duo, 2 GHz, not the newest machine in the world, but shouldn't be that inadequate. This is about the same to marginally better than I got trying a new ASUS rt-n66u as the client earlier.

[S.O.A. 83]

If you are using the AirVPN client then I would just use the "connect to recommended server" button. This chooses the server that is best for you. Going on other peoples speed results is not a reliable way to get good speeds. 

[hashswag 11]

There have been many posts on this recently on how to potentially address speed issues when using a VPN.

 

Some ISPs use throttling on certain ports. In the AirVPN client, you can change the port and protocol (UDP vs TCP) to try and avoid throttling (they are under the Protocols tab). Keep picking different options until speedtest.net gives you the right performance. As a last alternative (which is what I had to do), select "SSL Tunnel". This will encrypt the OpenVPN header that some ISPs detect, resulting in a plain ole SSL connection from the ISP perspective. There is a slight performance penalty doing it this way, but it made all the difference in the world to me.

 

Good luck...

[retiredpilot 6]

The above suggestion(s) are good ones.  I found the same thing and I am seeing better performance using a non-standard connection to Air.

 

Something else most seem to dismiss:  if you are using a consumer grade router you may find that the computational necessities of using an encrypted tunnel are "killing your router performance".  To experiment I bypassed my router and plugged an ethernet directly from the computer to the ISP's modem.  I gained at least 30% - 50% by eliminating that router bottleneck.  It may not be practical to use your machine connected directly to the modem.  I am mentioning this so you give your hardware due consideration whenever you replace your modem.  Maybe build a pfsense box with SSD?  If using a modem directly (as described above) changes your throughput that would be something to strongly consider over time.

 

It would certainly only take a few minutes to connect directly and observe what if any speed changes occur.

[bchurl 1]

I appreciate all the suggestions. I can't use the client as I won't upgrade my operating system to its reuirements, so I'm using tunnelblick.

 

my choice of servers is not entirely based on other users' speeds, I just use that to try to narrow it down usually. But, in this case, it was also the same as the  one out of a number tested that had done the best for me recently. And, looking at those stats, I realized other people DO get speed from these servers.

 

This new ISP (WOW) has a statement specifically saying they don't throttle services, but trying some other ports wouldn't hurt, I guess. Also the direct connect test. But, if there's anything else...

[hashswag 11]

I wouldn't necessarily believe what the ISP claims.  Verizon FiOS is famous for not blocking/throttling anything.  But with OpenVPN connections, they definitely throttle (or as they call it, "network manage").

[bchurl 1]

and, as I said, I'm using tunnelblick, so if anyone can point me to specific settings in there I should be aware of, I'd appreciate it.

[purrcy 0]

Verizon has been throtteling my connections to the Netherlands and to the United Kingdom, too (and sometimes even locally.) They have also temporarily disconnected my service which turns off my VPN. They have also disconnected my service for weeks at a time. I've searched this problem and have found that many Verizon customers are having the same problem them(try searching "Verizon blocks internet".) A more serious problem is that Verizon is the only ISP in my area without going to HughesNet. I've been using my ISP for over 20 years and I'm paying for unlimited 24/7 internet service. I'm certainly not getting that, and there is nothing that I can do about it.