Slow download speed - Heze/Persei Fremont/CA Servers

[ddrnewb 1]

Just started using AirVPN few days ago. I am experiencing slow download speeds regardless of time of the day or server load.

 

I live in the Bay Area, California. I have Comcast cable Internet with 105Mbps download/10Mbps upload speed.

My node is not oversold and does not slow down at all during peak hours so it's definitely not a problem with my ISP. I don't believe there is traffic-shaping either because I get great torrent download speeds without VPN.

I am not using a router. I use a high-end desktop computer directly connected to my Motorola SB6141 cable modem via ethernet cable. Speed, latency and reliability is of great concern to me so I do not use wireless router

or share my Internet with anyone.

 

For my VPN configuration, I am using AirVPN's windows software on Windows 7, UDP protocol, no SSL or SSH. I don't like TCP and I don't believe switching to TCP will increase the speed, probably the opposite.

I've tried different ports but download speed is always very slow, never above 20Mb/s. I've tried Los Angeles servers too but there wasn't any improvement in speed, always around 10Mb/s~20Mb/s.

I haven't tried any servers outside of California because it's pointless to me. I need low latency.

I don't use torrent download speed to benchmark VPN's speed. In addition to speedtest.net's speed test, I've tested real download speed by downloading multiple files at the same time from various 1Gbps servers.

The total download speed never went above 20Mb/s.

 

I currently also have a subscription with IPVanish's VPN. When using their VPN, I actually get 100+Mbps download speed without a problem. But their servers aren't reliable and frequently drop Internet traffic so

I decided to give AirVPN a try.

 

So, is there anyway to fix the low download speed I am experiencing with AirVPN's California servers?

I love the reliability of AirVPN's Fremont servers but the low download speed is just not acceptable to me.

[Staff 9972]

Hello!

 

How can you say that your ISP does not perform overselling and/or that traffic shaping is not applied?

 

Please try a connection with OpenVPN over SSL to support or deny this claim. In client menu "AirVPN" -> "Preferences" -> "Protocols" select "SSL Tunnel - Port 443", click "Save" and start a new connection.

 

Kind regards

[go558a83nk 362]

Staff, I don't usually disagree with you but what about the point of the fast speeds to another VPN provider?

[ddrnewb 1]

Just tried speedtest with SSL 443 connected to Persei (Fremont, CA), which is the closest server to my location.

 

It's better but still nowhere close to my Internet's acutal speed. I know I should expect at least 10% decrease in speed due to encryption and routing overhead but 30Mb/s is too low when my Internet's actual download speed is 105Mbps

 

I know the node in my area is not oversold or congested because I always get maximum download/upload speed even during peak hours. No spikes in latency either.

I am very obsessive about speed and latency, so I would notice right away if I was on a congested node.

Using a different provider's VPN, I get 100+Mbps download speed even with UDP 433. But like I said, I don't like their service because of frequent drops in connection.

[ddrnewb 1]

Just did another speedtest at 7PM PST, connected to Persei, SSL 443.

 

No improvement at all....

Is there ANYONE who gets 100Mbps down while connected to Persei or Heze?

[Zaroad 26]

Maybe security level is throttling it. You need to do a fair comparison with the same settings on both VPN.

I'm too far from Canada and my line is only 10M Fiber

[Staff 9972]

Staff, I don't usually disagree with you but what about the point of the fast speeds to another VPN provider?

 

Hello,

 

how can you know whether the other provider provides connections to the same ports with the same ciphers and same protocol tried on our servers by ddrnewb or not? And even if it did, you can't assume that ddrnewb tested exactly under the same conditions both services. Actually ddrnewb did not specify anything about that, so it's not correct to make such an assumption. And as you can see from the results he/she posted, we were right, either his/her ISP is performing traffic shaping or it's his/her system to do that.

 

Kind regards

[Staff 9972]

@ddrnewb

 

As you can see either your ISP or your system perform extreme traffic shaping because with OpenVPN over SSL, instead of getting lower performance, you get almost the triple throughput. This means that the remarkable overhead introduced by double tunneling added to the extremely significant loss of performance when OpenVPN is forced to work in TCP (because stunnel can't support UDP) added to all the problems related to TCP/UDP (your applications protocol) over TCP over TCP, are LESS than the traffic shaping against pure UDP and/or OpenVPN by your ISP or by your system.

 

If you don't have anything in your system that slows down UDP and/or direct OpenVPN (we have seen cases of customers throttling their own systems without even being aware of that...) your ISP is the culprit.

 

Another clue that points to your ISP and not to your system is that in different hours you have got significantly different performance. Even if we assume that it was the Persei datacenter congested (which should not be the case because we are careful about infrastructure of our ISPs), then you should have recorded higher performance on some other location.

 

Kind regards

[go558a83nk 362]

 

Staff, I don't usually disagree with you but what about the point of the fast speeds to another VPN provider?

 

Hello,

 

how can you know whether the other provider provides connections to the same ports with the same ciphers and same protocol tried on our servers by ddrnewb or not? And even if it did, you can't assume that ddrnewb tested exactly under the same conditions both services. Actually ddrnewb did not specify anything about that, so it's not correct to make such an assumption. And as you can see from the results he/she posted, we were right, either his/her ISP is performing traffic shaping or it's his/her system to do that.

 

Kind regards

 

I didn't assume as much as you think.

 

1) the OP says he doesn't like TCP, so I deduced that he would NOT have used TCP for the other VPN provider.

2) from what I can see IPvanish employs no special obfuscation techniques.

3) I think it's a big assumption to say that the speed difference shown is due to protocol.  it could just be because of the different time of day and all the many other things that determine internet quality.  I believe that point is made in the third speed test posted, where the speed is back down to being similar to the first even though it was an SSL tunnel test.

[ddrnewb 1]

I already said I use UDP in my first post....

I tried SSL because Staff asked me to.

[ddrnewb 1]

@ddrnewb

 

As you can see either your ISP or your system perform extreme traffic shaping because with OpenVPN over SSL, instead of getting lower performance, you get almost the triple throughput. This means that the remarkable overhead introduced by double tunneling added to the extremely significant loss of performance when OpenVPN is forced to work in TCP (because stunnel can't support UDP) added to all the problems related to TCP/UDP (your applications protocol) over TCP over TCP, are LESS than the traffic shaping against pure UDP and/or OpenVPN by your ISP or by your system.

 

If you don't have anything in your system that slows down UDP and/or direct OpenVPN (we have seen cases of customers throttling their own systems without even being aware of that...) your ISP is the culprit.

 

Another clue that points to your ISP and not to your system is that in different hours you have got significantly different performance. Even if we assume that it was the Persei datacenter congested (which should not be the case because we are careful about infrastructure of our ISPs), then you should have recorded higher performance on some other location.

 

Kind regards

 

Not true. Did you not see the 3rd speed test I posted? It was done using SSL 443.

It proves that regardless of protocol I am getting slow speeds.

 

No I do not have anything on my computer that would slow down my Internet at all, in anyway, UDP or direct openVPN. I am not some household wife that needs GeekSquad to set up a router.

I know what is on my computer, i know how it is configured, and I obsessively monitor my Internet's performance. If the problem was on my computer, I would have fixed it instead of making a thread here.

 

If my ISP is the culprit, how am I getting much faster speeds when using different VPN providers? Even with the cheap PIA VPN, I get 50Mbps minimum using their San Jose servers.

Is my ISP somehow only throttling AirVPN connections? Highly unlikely.

[Staff 9972]

 

@ddrnewb

 

As you can see either your ISP or your system perform extreme traffic shaping because with OpenVPN over SSL, instead of getting lower performance, you get almost the triple throughput. This means that the remarkable overhead introduced by double tunneling added to the extremely significant loss of performance when OpenVPN is forced to work in TCP (because stunnel can't support UDP) added to all the problems related to TCP/UDP (your applications protocol) over TCP over TCP, are LESS than the traffic shaping against pure UDP and/or OpenVPN by your ISP or by your system.

 

If you don't have anything in your system that slows down UDP and/or direct OpenVPN (we have seen cases of customers throttling their own systems without even being aware of that...) your ISP is the culprit.

 

Another clue that points to your ISP and not to your system is that in different hours you have got significantly different performance. Even if we assume that it was the Persei datacenter congested (which should not be the case because we are careful about infrastructure of our ISPs), then you should have recorded higher performance on some other location.

 

Kind regards

 

Not true. Did you not see the 3rd speed test I posted? It was done using SSL 443.

 

We also saw this:

https://airvpn.org/topic/14078-slow-download-speed-hezepersei-fremontca-servers/?p=26937&do=findComment&comment=26937

 

where it is reported a performance that's almost triple than that you recorded with direct UDP connections.

 

At the same time you are absolutely sure that there is no congestion in your ISP network, so we have momentarily ruled out this option.

 

That's why we think it's traffic shaping, but of course it could be also bad peering. Let's try to verify the first option first.

 

 

If my ISP is the culprit, how am I getting much faster speeds when using different VPN providers? Even with the cheap PIA VPN, I get 50Mbps minimum using their San Jose servers.

Is my ISP somehow only throttling AirVPN connections? Highly unlikely.

 

 

That fact is meaningless in many cases, for example if it is port shaping. It would be relevant now to compare the ports you connect to the VPN servers with PIA and with Air. The option that it is a port shaping deserves to be verified.

 

Also, what is your CPU, and which cipher do you use with PIA?

 

Kind regards

[ddrnewb 1]

my CPU is Intel i5-3570k. I forgot which cipher I used with PIA because I was done using PIA 2 months ago since they were blocking way too many ports so I couldn't run some online-games. But regardless, I was getting 50Mbps minimum on PIA with both TCP and UDP OpenVPN protocol.

After I stopped using PIA, I swiched to IPVanish. With IPVanish's San Jose, CA servers, I get 100+ Mbps any time of the day with UDP 443, which is the only protocol I use with IPVanish.

 

You can see from my speed test results that SSL 443 provides no improvement in speed. Only pattern I've seen with your Persei and Heze servers is that during earning morning hours (4AM~11AM PST approximately), I get around 20Mbps~30Mbps download and 40Mbps is the highest I've ever gotten.

UDP or SSL didn't matter. The results were the same. Only reason the 2nd test I posted was higher is because it was done at 9AM.

During peak hours (4PM~10PM PST), my speed test average with your Persei and Heze servers is 10Mbps~25Mbps.

 

Considering that my actual Internet does not slow down during peak hours, it seems that your servers are highly affected during peak hours. And regardless of time of the day, they are unable to provide more than 40Mbps download speed.

[ddrnewb 1]

Ok good thing speedtest.net saves my past test results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These tests were done with ExpressVPN, IPVanish, and PIA.

I've been using VPNs for a long time so I had subscription to a lot of different services, sometimes I paid for more than one simultaneously.

 

All of these tests were done using UDP OpenVPN protocol. Same computer, same location and ISP.

 

So you trying to blame my ISP or computer for the slow download speeds I am experiencing with your Persei and Heze servers is not acceptable to me.

[ddrnewb 1]

where it is reported a performance that's almost triple than that you recorded with direct UDP connections.

 

Please do not exaggerate.

 

29.25 is not almost triple of 13.38. Not even close. It's much more close to double.

13.38 x 3 = 40.14

13.38 x 2 = 26.76

 

Also,

Speed test done with SSL 443.

 

Speed test done with UDP 443

 

The SSL test result is in fact lower.

And before you say something about port shaping, I did try multiple tests on all available ports for UDP, 443, 80, and 2018. There wasn't any difference.

 

Honestly, why don't you connect to Persei or Heze server, as a client just like myself, and test the speeds?

[Staff 9972]

Hello!

 

We confirm all that written before. You have obtained triple throughput with OpenVPN over SSL than with direct UDP, instead of lower.

 

Your calculations are wrong (because they do not take into account how a VPN works), but that's not important at all: even when the throughput is the same, this is a "smoking gun": traffic shaping.

 

The point is that you got at least once higher throughput with OpenVPN over SSL than with direct UDP connection, and in all other cases approximately the very same throughput. If there was no traffic shaping (of course assuming that every other condition you reported stands), you would have always got a significantly lower throughput with OpenVPN over SSL.

 

Tests to Persei are fine at the moment. Sometimes you can even see some user in the Top 10 Speed table (in the "Status" page) connected to Persei.

 

Now, let's move on to find something more useful for you, we repeat: it would be relevant to compare the ports you connect to the VPN servers with PIA and with Air. The option that it is port shaping deserves to be verified. Also, what is your CPU and which cipher do you select when connected to PIA?

 

Kind regards

[ddrnewb 1]

I've already stated my CPU. Please read all of my posts. Seems you only read the last one. I've made 3 posts before this post.

Also, the fact that using UDP 433, I've gotten higher speed test result than SSL 433 means that the protocol is not making any difference. The only thing that is changing the speed test results is time of the day and the server load, NOT protocol.

This points to the problem on your servers.

Also, how do you explain my speed test results with other VPN providers? Not just PIA. According to your theory, my ISP must be somehow detecting AirVPN connections and selectively throttling only that.

I've already said I've gotten 100+Mbps download with UDP 433 using other VPN provider. If port shaping is in effect, how do you explain this?

[Staff 9972]

Hello!

 

If you connect via UDP 443 with other providers with the very same cipher (please check both of these) and you get higher performance then we have no rational explanation, we're sorry. Maybe it's a peering problem, try also other servers in different datacenters, because Heze and Persei are in the same datacenter with the same provider.

 

Kind regards

[SlyFox 10]

I only have a 40 down line but I max it out when I connect to Persei and I live over 1,000 miles away. (Windows client 443 or 80 UDP). So no problem with me. It must be an ISP issue.

[ddrnewb 1]

I only have a 40 down line but I max it out when I connect to Persei and I live over 1,000 miles away. (Windows client 443 or 80 UDP). So no problem with me. It must be an ISP issue.

 

If you read this thread and actually understood what was said, you wouldn't say that "it must be an ISP issue".

I've gotten 40Mbps download too, while connected to Persei. But that's during non-peak hours (USA PST Timezone) and while the server load is lower than average.

Considering my Internet is 105Mbps down, even 40Mbps is relatively pretty slow. So if your Internet is only 40Mbps, it's probably not a problem for you, but it is for me.

[ddrnewb 1]

 

I just got this result on Heze server at 11:50 PM PST. So you all can trash your "ISP is the culprit" theory.

I began using AirVPN on April 8, and this is the very first time I've gotten this speed on Heze or Persei.

It seems that your servers have the capacity to provide this speed, but during the most of the day it is unable to because of server load or network congestion in the data center.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

We're not getting anywhere with this. We need an actual comparison of the data of many different users to see where the error is.

Too many people are reporting worse speeds with AirVPN in comparison to other VPN providers. The general explanation is either shaping or bad peering. I started to doubt this claim when someone noticed this "shaping" only takes effect when using Windows. On Linux that person could reach full speeds.

 

I am really interested in solving this for everybody here and everyone to come in the future. Posts containing "I experience bad speeds with AirVPN" are so frequent now, it definitely is one more question to append to my signature FAQ, but guess what - there's no solution.

 

Let me think about how to do this..

 

(Sent via Tapatalk 4)

[go558a83nk 362]

yeah, the way Staff handled this whole thing wasn't correct.

 

they need to be slower to come to a conclusion, and ask questions if there are still unknowns.

[Zaroad 26]

Curiously, your speed test says your VPN is on NL

PIA encryption by default is:

(Data Encryption/Data Authentication/Handshake)

 

AES-128 / SHA1 / RSA-2048

[go558a83nk 362]

Curiously, your speed test says your VPN is on NL

PIA encryption by default is:

(Data Encryption/Data Authentication/Handshake)

 

AES-128 / SHA1 / RSA-2048

 

yeah the databases often think Persei is in NL