Comcast, SSL and slow speeds

[htpc 9]

hello airvpn team,

 

I'm having more and more trouble getting acceptable speeds while connected to the US servers. As comcast does heavy throttling on non-SSL traffic, I'm using VPN over SSL via eddie client for some months now. This could get me somewhere around 50-60% of my available (100Mbit) out-of-tunnel speed on average. This is until recently. The last days/couple of weeks I run somewhere around 3-5 Mbits down most of the time. I don't know if this is a problem on your side or if comcast found a way to even throttle SSL traffic (is this even possible?) but please look into this a.s.a.p.

 

When I switch servers sometimes I do get better speeds but only for a very short time span (30mins to a few hours max) before It goes back to same old slow speed.

 

Can this be related to the attacks that were run on your infrastructure lately? I'm not complaining about losing some speed on the way while using a VPN but 5% of the available bandwidth is something I will and cannot afford in the long run. I'm in desperation mode :-)

 

thx for your help!

[Staff 9973]

Hello!

 

It can't be related to the attacks you refer to (they just did not involve VPN servers). Does anybody else experience the same with Comcast?

 

Kind regards

[rickjames 106]

Hello!

 

It can't be related to the attacks you refer to (they just did not involve VPN servers). Does anybody else experience the same with Comcast?

 

Kind regards

 

Unsure about comcast but a buddy that games via the US Cali servers has been having major issues with them. In the last 2 weeks or so we watch him loose connection ingame or drop out of teamspeak frequently. He's fine on the Can or NL servers but his ping ingame is really high on those.

[htpc 9]

I can confirm that canadian servers show much better speeds and consistency. problem though, apart from the ping I also need US IPs for several services I use frequently.

[Zaroad 26]

What speeds did you get using only VPN on Udp ports without SSL tunneling?

[htpc 9]

before I began tunneling via SSL the pure udp speeds were crazy slow. You could really see the ISP throttling kicking in. lately it was pretty much the same with or without SSL.

 

BUT I just read about the virgina server closures and connected to some geographically more distant US servers. results are much better now with pavonis or alkaid. I'm going around 30Mbits down on these servers. That's a huge relief although still a pretty big speed penalty compared to out-of-tunnel speeds. btw, Is there something like a rule of thumb for the penalty one has to expect when using openvpn over SSL?

 

I read that we were unwelcomed guests on leaseweb, maybe it was them killing my speeds all along?

[mlp 10]

On comcast using SSL and seeing the same speeds I always do.  Always see a big difference between the airvpn speed tests and other ones.  Likely due to difference in techniques of how they are measuring.

 

Currently on a 50/12 connection, am seeing (all in Mbit/sec):

 

AirVPN test

 

Down: 16.869 Mbit/s Out, 16.822 Mbit/s In (99%), 20MB - Up: 7.256 Mbit/s Out, 7.354 Mbit/s In (101%), 20MB - Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 00:31:55 GMT - Buffers: 20MB/20MB - Laps: 3, Time: 100.82 secs

 

Speedtest.net 38.4/7.22

 

Speed.of.me 32.22/5.88

 

Download of 120 MB file from FTP server in same town - 41.24

 

So whatever changed, if it is comcast, is not widespread.  Yet.

[psychlops 27]

I'm on Comcast using UDP without SSL and I've always gotten full speeds. 

 

Maybe Comcast is throttling you, but they're not throttling me. If it makes any difference, I'm using Viscosity, not Eddie.

[htpc 9]

I'm on Comcast using UDP without SSL and I've always gotten full speeds. 

 

Maybe Comcast is throttling you, but they're not throttling me. If it makes any difference, I'm using Viscosity, not Eddie.

just tried again, without SSL I'm getting exactly 10Mbits down every try on my 100Mbit connection. this seems pretty typical for throttling from the ISP side. I know lots of people in my area that experience the same. Guess you're on the lucky side

[psychlops 27]

If you're using a lot of bandwidth, and you're in an area where a lot of other people are using it too,it might boil down to this:

 

If a certain area of the network nears a state of congestion, our congestion management technique will ensure that all customers have a fair share of network access. This technique will identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth, and their Internet traffic will be temporarily managed until the congestion period passes. Customers will still be able to do anything they want online, but they could experience longer times to download or upload files or slower web surfing.

Our technique does not manage congestion based on specific online activities, protocols or applications that a customer uses. Rather, it only focuses on the heaviest users in real time...

 

http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/network-management-information

[Staff 9973]

@psychlops

 

What a smart definition of wild overselling they do have!

 

BTW, once overselling is decided for whatever reason, this method is probably much better than discriminations against protocols. A protocol-agnostic "load balance" is surely much less destructive (or even not destructive at all) for Net Neutrality.

 

Kind regards

[mlp 10]

I'm on Comcast using UDP without SSL and I've always gotten full speeds. 

 

Maybe Comcast is throttling you, but they're not throttling me. If it makes any difference, I'm using Viscosity, not Eddie.

 

Hopefully it stays that way, but change could be coming.  For about 1.5 years I was getting ~28 Mbit/sec on a 30 Mbit connection using AirVPN via UDP, then all of the sudden on a Monday, AirVPN UDP drops to 4.5 Mbit/sec down.  Reconnect/Reboot/Troubleshoot/Different times of day and night/using Eddie vs. command line openvpn.  None of it matters - stays there at 4.5 down.  At any point, drop off to clearnet, back up to max of 30 Mbit down.  Upload speeds whether clear or AirVPN were always near what I paid for (6 Mbit/sec at the time).  Tried every combination of the UDP/TCP protocols/ports in the client without success.  It kept with this magic 4.5 Mbit/sec down number.

 

Obscuring does seem to help.  They also seem to recognize SSH, and it stays consistently about 17.5 Mbit/sec.  Using SSL on comcast is now the only option to get back to about 80-90% of the speed I am paying for.

 

Hope your UDP only works for many years to come.

[psychlops 27]

I know a lot of people are having trouble with Comcast speeds. Maybe the reason I'm not is because I live out in the country where I don't have to share the local network with too many people.

 

Hopefully the situation will get better within the next year or so... Comcast says they'll be bringing 1-2 gb/s capability to the entire US by the end of next year:

 

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/comcast-says-itll-bring-ultra-fast-internet-us-2016/

 

In the meantime, have you tried getting in touch with Comcast and asking them WHY your connections are so slow? Maybe there's a problem on their end. There has to be a reason, and they have to give you an explanation. Document whatever they say, and if you're not satisfied with the explanations, file a complaint with the FCC. Nobody has the right to ask what you're using the speed for, so you won't have to explain yourself. Just tell them you videoconference or something.

 

Don't be shy! Make them give you a legitimate answer. As a customer, you have that right.

[htpc 9]

if you have ever tried to contact customer support at comcast you wouldn't make that suggestion :-) there's a reason they are ranked the worst company in the US even behind the IRS for years now. however I tried to do so anyways. it's like talking to an 80's video game AI. they have 5 standard troubleshooting suggestions ready for you (power cycle modem, reboot router etc.) after that nothing apart from: do you consider this issue resolved? anything else I can do for you today? my rice cooker has more knowledge than any of the guys there. but enough with the comcast rant - I could write a book about my experiences with them.

 

I guess it is what it is, and I'll have to live with it. If only someone would break the monopoly power the broadcasters established for themselves. recommended watch: 

 

 

At least changing away from leaseweb servers now gave me somewhat acceptable speeds again even though far from advertised.

 

thanks everybody for your contributions.

[htpc 9]

now I have to reopen this one again as I couldn't let go and did some more research.

 

what I tried is download a very well seeded torrent with transmission and monitor speed and traffic volume with little snitch network monitor, activity monitor and the speed values of transmission itself. maybe someone can explain the big differences to me? At the exact same time with no other software or downloads running I get a max speed with transmission of 4.5 MB/s (with high variance up and down) a pretty steady 12MB/s from little snitch reading and a reading of max 18MB/s (again high speed variance) from OSX activity monitor. according to Ipleak there are no leaks whatsoever. Still this makes me think that something is not going as it should here. If my torrent only progresses with 4.5MB/s at the best but both other tools show much higher throughput, where does all that data go? btw, port forwarding to transmission is setup and working through the client area tool.

 

I also cannot make sense of the traffic volume, Eddie shows roughly 4GB download volume while activity monitor shows 12GB. I know that activity monitor also calculates local traffic but I'm more then confident I didn't transfer anything close to 8GBs over the local network during that monitored timespan.

 

again, thx for helping wrapping my brain around this.

[Staff 9973]

Hello!

 

Unsure whether it can help calculations return on the right track on your system: you have to consider that x throughput on the tun interface means also (at least) x throughput on the physical interface, so a tool that calculates total system bandwidth in usage by summing up all the network interfaces activity will return a value that's at least double (X*2) than the "real" one.

 

About data consumed on the server, that could be right, when you consume x bytes on your system, you are in reality consuming the double or even more traffic to the VPN server. Not that's really important for you (it is for us when we need to calculate required bandwidth), because you have unlimited traffic with any Air subscription. We will check the displayed value on the control panel to confirm or deny that.

 

Kind regards

[Certifried 0]

Just wanted to add a comment here. This post is the reason I subscribed to AirVPN.

 

-- Pissed Comcast Customer

[go558a83nk 362]

Old thread but since I use comcast I might as well say that TCP and even SSL have always been slow for me with comcast from this location.  UDP is the way to go for me.

[Guest]

Comcast throttles all vpn traffic on all ports, so I use SSL/TCP/443, but remember there are other metrics they can use to regulate things e.g.-->  connection over 1 hour or download over 1 gb = disconnected.  I have spent plenty of time tinkering around and have figured out some of their router rules.
Now, however, I set my bittorrent client to unrestricted speed downloads and I don't get throttling or disconnects, so maybe it was the app.  But comcast DEFINITELY throttles openvpn/wireguard as with SSL speeds go from about 1.2mbps to up to 100mbits via ssl, which is horrible, so I assume the problem wasn't the eddie client lol :D