Using VPN to Speedup Your Internet International Speed

[mzep]

I personally prefer PIA (private Internet Access). In my experience I found it to be considerably faster than PureVPN and with more "legitimate" (i.e. real) servers world-wide.

[Pib]

The best way to watch out for false results with Ookla servers is, AFAIK, to watch the ping result number in ms (milli-seconds).

If it's approx under 50-100 ms, the connection that's being tested is a local one, not from Europe or the U.S. -- despite whatever the website is saying. This is where the "speed of light" factor comes into play, since the U.S. is 7000-8000 miles away from here.

But if the ping time in ms in 200-300 ms, that at least is indicative of a U.S. or Europe connection -- or a very poor/broken local one.

A low ping time is a dead give away sometimes, but at other times the ping time can be right but the download speed still way too high. It's like the ping time was not fooled by local cache servers but the download speed was.

[ozterix]

wonder if anyone has an opinion on this.

I have 3BB fiber at home, the test on their pc when they come is 30Mb/c d and 12Mb/s up or similar

I have roku linked to the router with a cable and I can not watch a single piece of skynews without interruption for buffering. Sometimes the movie will stop 30 sec for rebuffering

On youtube is the same, can not see a single movie even 1 min without interruption.

I can download to my synology and watch movies later but using youtube is near impossible

I will get a VPN and try again, if anyone has advised on this I'd love to hear it

[muratremix]

wonder if anyone has an opinion on this.

I have 3BB fiber at home, the test on their pc when they come is 30Mb/c d and 12Mb/s up or similar

I have roku linked to the router with a cable and I can not watch a single piece of skynews without interruption for buffering. Sometimes the movie will stop 30 sec for rebuffering

On youtube is the same, can not see a single movie even 1 min without interruption.

I can download to my synology and watch movies later but using youtube is near impossible

I will get a VPN and try again, if anyone has advised on this I'd love to hear it

Was 30/12 test done with ethernet cable?

If so, you are suffering from wifi 2.4 ghz noise (walls in Thailand are 10cm thick at best! And not much Iron!) and you either need to use ethernet cables, or 5ghz wireless access point / router or a good quality AV500/AV600 homeplug/powerline adapters

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I have roku linked to the router with a cable

Except, he said his Roku box is connected to his router by a CABLE, so I'm assuming he's already using Ethernet for that, not wifi.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

wonder if anyone has an opinion on this.

I have 3BB fiber at home, the test on their pc when they come is 30Mb/c d and 12Mb/s up or similar

I have roku linked to the router with a cable and I can not watch a single piece of skynews without interruption for buffering. Sometimes the movie will stop 30 sec for rebuffering

On youtube is the same, can not see a single movie even 1 min without interruption.

I can download to my synology and watch movies later but using youtube is near impossible

I will get a VPN and try again, if anyone has advised on this I'd love to hear it

Using a VPN certainly would probably help, especially for international content like SkyNews.

But, if you were really getting a 30 Mbps local connection within Thailand, you shouldn't really be getting buffering on something like SkyNews via Roku.

Try your own international speedtest, and see how the results show with your current setup.

Go to TestMy.net, and in the upper right corner, click the "Test Servers" link, and choose to test to their London server in the UK (click "Set as Default" next to London). Then run a download test and see how your current setup is actually performing.

BTW, in terms of troubleshooting, you might also doublecheck the ethernet cable you're using between your router and Roku, and/or swap out a different cable to see if that changes anything.

Also, Roku has a built-in SpeedTest app you can use directly on the Roku device itself.

https://www.rokuchannels.tv/speedtest/

Edited June 18, 2016 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3BB fiber 100/10 Mbps plan in BKK with a good VPN-PPTP. Speedtesting to the U.S.

[grin]

Correct that a high ping does not indicate that the test is legit as the content may be still cached by the ISP. Another problem with using the speed tests mentioned above is that they typically use ports that ISPs may be giving higher priority to. Yet another problem is that the server side of these tests may have their upload bandwidth limited.

If you want to try more significant tests try googling bwctl, iperf3 and nuttcp. You have much more control when running these tests from your box either to your own servers or to public servers that support these tests. These utilities are available on linux and can be installed using brew on OS X. I would assume versions are also available for Windows.

Grin

[THAIPHUKET]

Would you select your VPN DNS based on the best international Internet speeds such as South Korea, Denmark or Island? See list attached

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3BB fiber 100/10 Mbps plan in BKK with a good VPN-PPTP. Speedtesting to the U.S.

PS0487.jpg

PS0488.jpg

I should have mentioned... the results I posted above were from a Windows 10 laptop connected to the N wifi network in my home.

[grin]

Selecting your VPN DNS based on connection speed will make no difference for DNS services like Google DNS or OpenDNS since they use anycast routing. With anycast routing the same DNS IP address can be used by multiple servers around the world and you typically will be routed to the nearest DNS server that shares the DNS IP address.

Grin

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3BB fiber 100/10 Mbps plan in BKK with a good VPN-PPTP. Speedtesting to the U.S.

PS0487.jpg

PS0488.jpg

I should have mentioned... the results I posted above were from a Windows 10 laptop connected to the N wifi network in my home.

Just to reinforce the message of this thread

Shortly after I got the 25 Mbps result above using a PPTP VPN connecting to the U.S. with my house N wifi, I re-ran the same exact TestMy speedtest to the same U.S. server earlier this afternoon.

This time, direct Ethernet connection with my desktop PC to my 3BB 100/10 Mbps fiber internet ... direct connection to the U.S. without any VPN -- 2 Mbps.

That's the kind of 10-fold speed increase with a VPN that I had mentioned earlier in the thread.

[mtls2005]

Other than speedtest results can anyone comment on the applications they use daily which benefit from the speed increases associated with using a VPN?

And are there any downsides - applications which won't work, or work less well - when using a VPN?

Any issues with VoIP, gaming, email?

Geo re-location I understand, although things like WebRTC and even the time differences between your browser/pc and that associated with your IP address do allow service/app providers to determine your location, or at least guess that you are not where you say you are.

Are there any workarounds for the time difference issue (understanding that WebRTC is less of an issue assuming you are using a geo-acceptable IP via a VPN)?

[Pib]

I only use my browsers (Chrome & IE), email client (Outlook), and Google Earth with VPN...works fine. And my Windows updates fine with on a VPN connection. I don't think you find any problem with your apps working with VPN.

[mtls2005]

email client (Outlook)

Most VPN providers block SMTP, and require you to specifically request unblocking by email address. I assume you requested this service? And that it works fine now?

I understand that some VPN providers may already have certain email servers 'whitelisted', like gmail.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I've never had any major problems with doing any work that has been blocked by use of my VPN.

Video streaming from international sources greatly improved, as are downloads of large files. Etc etc. I use Outlook.com and Gmail for my email, and never had any VPN related issues with those.

A few minor things

--with my VPN provider at least, while download speeds are greatly improved, upload speeds seem diminished vs a regular direct connection, which seems to degrade VOIP. So whenever I'm using Skype or similar, I turn off/disconnect VPN.

--because VPN creates a kind of separate network connection, depending on how it's set-up/implemented say at the PC level instead of at the router level, it can interfere with local network printing, since the networked printer may not be on the VPN network.

[Pib]

email client (Outlook)

Most VPN providers block SMTP, and require you to specifically request unblocking by email address. I assume you requested this service? And that it works fine now?

I understand that some VPN providers may already have certain email servers 'whitelisted', like gmail.

I've never had a problem in SMTP being blocked with three different VPN service providers I've used when using Outlook with with my @gmail, @live, @outlook, and other email domains.

Now I have experienced gmail, live, and outlook email domains block my Outlook email client from accessing my mail when I first started using a new VPN service or I made VPN connection to a city not used before. But the error msg would say "browser logon required. " I do the browser logon one time from that new VPN connection location and then Outlook can successfully access the account's again.

Happened a few times when initially starting to use PureVPN a few weeks ago...been fine since as the email domains now know it was me since I did browser logon a few times using PureVPN.

[CaptHaddock]

email client (Outlook)

Most VPN providers block SMTP, and require you to specifically request unblocking by email address. I assume you requested this service? And that it works fine now?

I understand that some VPN providers may already have certain email servers 'whitelisted', like gmail.

I have had that problem in the past, but my email service, fastmail.fm, offers SMTP on other ports than 25 to get around ISP blocking.

[touch]

I have AIS Fibre 20/7 and when I had it installed I had asked the tech people at AIS what kind of speed I could expect to the US west coast. They said I shouldn't get anything less that 10 Mbit down.

Anyway, after installation itt turned out that the speed was only 2 Mbit. Contacted AIS and got to talk with their NOC (technical dept). They said they'd look into it. Two weeks later I had an average of 17 mbit down to San Jose measured with Testmy.net. AIS said it was a routing issue and that they only had direct control to Singapore. They had talked to the Singapore people and changed the routing.

My speed has dropped to 2 Mbit once more, but a call to AIS and then to NOC got it back to my normal 17 Mbit speed.

I recently tried Purevpn and while it only marginally deceased my speed on my PC it really had a negative impact on my Android devices. Both WiFi and on Ethernet. For some reason I couldn't get more than around 1 mbit in down speed.

Spent a long time with purevpn support to try and get it running as fast as on the PC, to no avail.

Does anyone have any recommendation for a VPN service that works well on both PC and Android?

[muratremix]

I have AIS Fibre 20/7 and when I had it installed I had asked the tech people at AIS what kind of speed I could expect to the US west coast. They said I shouldn't get anything less that 10 Mbit down.

Anyway, after installation itt turned out that the speed was only 2 Mbit. Contacted AIS and got to talk with their NOC (technical dept). They said they'd look into it. Two weeks later I had an average of 17 mbit down to San Jose measured with Testmy.net. AIS said it was a routing issue and that they only had direct control to Singapore. They had talked to the Singapore people and changed the routing.

My speed has dropped to 2 Mbit once more, but a call to AIS and then to NOC got it back to my normal 17 Mbit speed.

I recently tried Purevpn and while it only marginally deceased my speed on my PC it really had a negative impact on my Android devices. Both WiFi and on Ethernet. For some reason I couldn't get more than around 1 mbit in down speed.

Spent a long time with purevpn support to try and get it running as fast as on the PC, to no avail.

Does anyone have any recommendation for a VPN service that works well on both PC and Android?

AIS lets you talk to NOC directly? Wow.

People in NOC don't even bother emails, no matter Thailand or my Homecountry. They only talk to other NOC staff.

Kudos to AIS.

Btw, if san jose was 2mbit only, was other US west coast locations any better? Because AIS has several IP transit from different companies.

[touch]

Nope the Wast Coast was pretty much the same.

Testmy.net doesn't have a server in San Jose any longer I have to test with either LA or SF. LA is usually a bit faster than San Francisco, but both locations are comfortably over 10 mbit

On another note, they had to pull the Fibre cable a bit over 1 km to my house. @20 Baht per meter that would have been around 20K.

I got several discounts.

First 300 meters free

Moving from another provider 6 months service for 100B/month. Equals a discount of 650B/month.

Special discount from the subcontractors that had a quota to fill.

All in all I paid 3.600Baht.

I'm a happy camper.

Now to get the VPN problem on Android solved....

[JetsetBkk]

VPN newbie here... do these VNP software packages/providers allow you to specify more than one server/IP address?

For example, can you specify that one program - eg. a bittorrent client - does NOT use the VPN, and that your browser DOES use the VPN?

Is it possible to have VPN "profiles", ie. select a profile and your IP changes to the US, click another and your IP is in the UK?

Any help appreciated.

[grin]

One thing you can do if you have problems getting a VPN connection working on any of your devices is to get a WiFi router that supports running a VPN client. Then you just leave the VPN connection up on this WiFi router and connect to it from your device when you want a VPN connection. One advantage to this is that your device is not slowed down by running a VPN client and another is that you can connect devices like Roku sticks that do not support VPN connections. The latest firmware on several ASUS routers supports VPN clients.

Grin

[Pib]

VPN newbie here... do these VNP software packages/providers allow you to specify more than one server/IP address?

For example, can you specify that one program - eg. a bittorrent client - does NOT use the VPN, and that your browser DOES use the VPN?

Is it possible to have VPN "profiles", ie. select a profile and your IP changes to the US, click another and your IP is in the UK?

Any help appreciated.

Some VPN providers have "split-tunneling" capability where some of your apps will use the VPN connection and then every other app remains on your local/non-VPN connection. All apps do not automatically work with split-tunneling. PureVPN capability has that split tunneling capability.

Just a few minutes ago I went into the split-tunneling setting of the app, clicked the button where the app automatically searches your computer for apps that will work with split-tunneling and it identified my two browsers (Chrome and IE) and Skype. Now it also had a button where you could then manually add an app for split- tunneling, not to imply by manually adding an app that the app would really work with split tunneling.

I played with split-tunneling a little about a week ago by running Chrome on the VPN so my email client (Outlook) would stay on a local IP address....it all worked. Chrome was using the VPN and all my other apps that access the internet started on the local connection.

But to stress, whether every app will work with split-tunneling is a different story.

[touch]

Does anyone have any recommendation as to a good vpn that works well on Android as well as on Windows?

[mtls2005]

I think most VPN service providers offer client apps which run on many platforms including Windows and Android.

Different providers offer a different number of simultaneous uses, usually with a minimum of two, so check that to make sure it meets your requirements.

You can look through the Play Store apps/reviews and align with a provider. Links for some of the providers mentioned in this thread:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gaditek.purevpnics&hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hidemyass.hidemyassprovpn&hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.astrill.astrillvpn&hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.strongvpn&hl=en

Edited June 20, 2016 by mtls2005

[touch]

Thanks for that, it would be nice to hear from people with real experience of the VPN providers as well

[Pib]

Just as a brief update, PureVPN still working fine for me since getting it on 7 June 16. Pretty much what I do when turning my computer on in the morning is make a VPN PPTP connection to their Singapore server and leave it like that until turning the computer off at night. Connection via Singapore also gives me fast connections to the rest of the world.

I usually use a VPN PPTP connection since I have Windows manual PPTP and LT2P connections setup to Singapore, LA, and SF in my Windows settings...just so easy to click on these and have a connection in seconds....usually don't even use Pure's VPN client software unless I want to play around in doing some testing to various VPN servers around the world or use OpenVPN.

This morning I did some quick comparisons using Testmy.net Manual Download 25MB file to their Singapore server with a PureVPN PPTP, L2TP, and OpenVPN-UDP connections to Singapore. Did three tests using each VPN protocol....total of nine tests and then did some averaging. As a reminder I have a True Cable/DOCSIS/FCI (so many different names True has called it over the last year or so as marketing ploy) 15Mb up / 1.5Mb down plan here in Bangkok. Below are the results run at approx 8:50am this morning

PPTP L2TP OpenVPN

20.1Mb 20.7Mb 23.3Mb

24.8 23.7 23.0

25.0 23.7 23.3

Ave: 23.3 Aver 22.7 Ave 23.2

As you can see there is very little speed difference between the three protocols but of course there are security differences. OpenVPN probably being a hair more secure than L2TP and PPTP pulling up the rear in terms of security...not to imply PPTP is not secure. But just for general browsing, emailing, downloading, etc., I really don't care too much about the minor security differences...I lean towards wanting to use the fastest protocol and also too lazy to use the PureVPN client to make a OpenVPN connection. And it also goes to show again in my testing that it's a nose-to-nose finish in speed-wise with the finishing order usually PPTP first, OpenVPN-UDP second, and L2TP third...which is in alignment with what I see other VPN sites mention.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Pib

[sniffdog]

PureVPN is a good provider and at 2 dollars a month a bargain.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pib]

Yea...I got my 2 year deal at $2.08/month when they had their birthday promotion (guess they were turning 9 or 10 years old) going on for about a month, but that promotion ended a week or so ago. For a few days after that promotion ended their monthly cost with an annual plan went back up to almost $5/mo. Now, I just checked their website a few minutes ago and they now have another two year plan for $2.49/month....how long will that promotion last? Who knows?

One thing I found out when shopping for a new VPN provider by googling, coming across various sites that advertise VPN providers, going to the actual VPN providers websites, etc., is many of them have brief promotions with truly deep reductions from their normal price. Like Ivacy VPN has had a 2 year promotion right now (and even a month ago) for $1.66/mo but I don't know how good or not-so-good they are.

And of course many VPN providers make their normal price sound like the deal of the century....already discounted by some big percentage....but it still may be pricey in comparison to other providers. Kinda like when you go into many department stores and see all the 30, 50, 80% off promotion signs...but when you check what the new price is with the promotion the price is still not a good deal...mostly a hype promotion. But in other cases the promotions/reduced prices are really a good deal.

A person just needs to do his research and comparisons to see which providers are truly providing the best deal and of course which ones provide good service. So, so many VPN providers...more popping up (and maybe disappearing) every day.