New to VPNs--strange result, any ideas?

[jm00r18_esp 0]

The action by the U-S government to get rid of "net neutrality" brought me to AirVPN.  I found it easy to install and set up.  So far, so good, right?

 

But there's another side to the coin.  I have been in a multi-month struggle with my ISP (AT&T) concerning the extreme slowness of my "high-speed" service.  This shows most dramatically when I ping a server on their (or any other) net.  Packet loss runs as high as 96%.  When it's good, 0% shows up.  So I wrote a script and set crontab to run it for me every 15 minutes.  The script pings a server for 3 minutes, prints a summary to a daily file, and exits.

 

They haven't come up with any explanation yet, but after I set up AirVPN, I noticed that my system seemed "snappier."  I checked the log and saw that after I activated AirVPN, my packet loss went from about 85% to between zero and 5%.  This doesn't seem to make sense, but I am NOT complaining!  Does anyone have an idea what's going on--perhaps some hidden "throttling?"

 

[Khariz 109]

It could be the traffic shaping algorithms your ISP uses.  Since it just sees you making a standard request to a single IP, it might be treating all of your VPN traffic as high-priority standard web traffic instead of discerning and selecting how to treat various protocols on various ports.

[nick75 25]

Hi,

 

Glad it makes your online experience better!

What is your connection speed with and without the VPN?

What protocol do you use?

[jm00r18_esp 0]

nick75, I supposedly get ("up to") 32222 kbs.  But my actual "mileage" varies quite a bit.

 

<sarcastic>Fortunately</sarcastic>, storms here have led to lots of property damage, and killed a nice Eaton 9130 UPS, so I've been virtually putting out fires all morning.  However, since the system came up from a cold start, the first few periods captured were before I brought up the VPN.  Packet loss was 81%, 63%, and 71%.  Then I brought up the VPN.  Packet loss dropped to 1% and 6% during the two monitoring periods since.  Clearly, there is a big difference, but it is a tiny sample size.

 

In terms of protocols, I haven't done any customization, just the plain-vanilla setup for everything, including AirVPN.

 

Anecdotally, I first installed AirVPN on the laptop in the den.  I noticed the speed/usability improvement immediately.  However, this is strictly a "pleasure-hobby" machine.  At first, I did not attribute the speed change to the VPN install, but after the same thing happened on my "serious" boxes (which I monitor fairly closely)--BIG win here!  Incidentally, the ISP (AT&T) keeps closing out my tickets and I keep reopening them.  My grounds are: "I don't care what your measurements show, my ping logs show a very large packet loss problem on every node."

[nick75 25]

Maybe your ISP is injecting something (scripts or tags) in your connection (they're known for that) but it was badly implemented hence the loss and slow speed.

But who knows! Obviously, they'll never tell you that if it's the case.

[kbps 29]

IT could be that AT&T's network is poor, resulting in high packet loss.  They could have terrible peering arrangements with backbone providers or parts of their network is overloaded.  By using Air you effectively bypass a vast amount of their network, all the encrypted traffic is going to Air's machine in a well connected and uncontested data centre.

[jm00r18_esp 0]

kbps, your idea is what I have settled on.  The VPN was my response to the FCC's dropping various rules under the "net neutrality" and "privacy" topics.

 

I am not pleased with having to pay extra in order to enjoy the speeds I have already paid for, but that's just gravy over and beyond the benefits I get from using AirVPN.  I have allowed them to close out my last ticket on this problem, since the problem is essentially gone.  I do log a "ping test" every 15 minutes 24/7.  I have picked up some cases of up to 100% packet loss, even with the VPN, but so far, these seem to only occur in the very early morning hours, so they don't pose a real problem to me.

 

Thanks!

[larky 40]

kbps, your idea is what I have settled on.  The VPN was my response to the FCC's dropping various rules under the "net neutrality" and "privacy" topics.

 

I am not pleased with having to pay extra in order to enjoy the speeds I have already paid for, but that's just gravy over and beyond the benefits I get from using AirVPN.  I have allowed them to close out my last ticket on this problem, since the problem is essentially gone.  I do log a "ping test" every 15 minutes 24/7.  I have picked up some cases of up to 100% packet loss, even with the VPN, but so far, these seem to only occur in the very early morning hours, so they don't pose a real problem to me.

 

Thanks!

 

The problem is not gone, essentially or otherwise. You still have an ISP connection that's giving you poor service and you are paying for it, so if its essentially anything its that you are paying them to provide you essentially none to, at best, poor service. Get what you paid for, do not let them off the hook on this. After all, its your money so make them work to get it by supplying you suitable service.

 

If you went to the store and bought a gallon of milk and it was spoiled sour, would you then go buy chocolate syrup to add to it to make it taste better then say "the problem is essentially gone" ?