100M : VM Throttle VPN's?!?!?!

[*sloman*]

Hi All

Could anyone confirm if the below is true? Bit of background first. I have Giganews diamond that inlcudes VyprVPN. Downloading a file from newsgroups see's my connection max out at between 90Mb/s-120Mb/s. However as soon as i enable VPN my speed is reduced dramatically between 10Mb/s-20Mb/s.

Giganews/VyprVPN gave me the below explanation. One of my frinds uses HMA VPN and also has the same problem on 60Mb/s

Hello,

Virgin very much does traffic manage VPN's. They might not call it
"throttling" but what happens with Virgin ISP, which has been the
conclusion of our engineering team many times over when examining Virgin
user traffic, is that when the customers traffic is routed or sourced
through a location outside of the local area, the speed is managed harshly
and immediately. They might not say they throttle VPNs, but it is the case
that during peak hours Virgin traffic manages harshly and the VPN even more
so given the routing. Let me know if you have any further questions or
concerns.

If we can further assist you in anyway, please let us know. Thanks for
choosing Giganews!

--
Keegan
Giganews Support

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by *sloman*

Hi All

Could anyone confirm if the below is true? Bit of background first. I have Giganews diamond that inlcudes VyprVPN. Downloading a file from newsgroups see's my connection max out at between 90Mb/s-120Mb/s. However as soon as i enable VPN my speed is reduced dramatically between 10Mb/s-20Mb/s.

Giganews/VyprVPN gave me the below explanation. One of my frinds uses HMA VPN and also has the same problem on 60Mb/s

I don't use there VPN but instead send my traffic via SSL on port 443 using there EU server and i can get full speed any time of the day. !

[Qtx]

More likely to be a limitation of bandwidth at the VyprVPN end.

Its known that VM throttle newsgroups throughout the day and most use the SSL ports to get around that. There have been a few people saying that their ssl traffic has been managed too, just never seen any actual evidence for it myself.

[chienmort]

VPNs were designed to allow secure connections for outworkers connecting to company networks. They were not intended to assist people to get around traffic management.

Using a VPN as a consumer is the equivalent of the Audi Q8/Porsche Cayanne flying past stationary traffic on the hard shoulder.

Like everyone else I want as much bandwidth as I can get but my company VPN is capped at 1M.

I would be interested in hearing why people want to use VPNs.

I should also add that I am against Traffic Management but it is the lesser of two evils if it means my connection does not fall to dial up speeds.

[adduxi]

Originally Posted by chienmort

VPNs were designed to allow secure connections for outworkers connecting to company networks. They were not intended to assist people to get around traffic management.

That's exactly why I use a VPN tunnel through VM. Can't say I've ever noticed it slow though. I guess remote support out of hours is not exactly heavy on the network

[Qtx]

Lots of things are used in a way they were not originally designed for. That does not make it wrong to use. Viagra was originally made to treat high blood pressure for example...

Privacy is what I consider important from a VPN, but to someone else it may be to get an IP address in another country which gives them access to regional content, for someone else it is a way for them to bypass censorship.

Being anti-vpn is just...im speechless

[Milambar]

I would be interested in hearing why people want to use VPNs.

Originally, for when VM's routing gets foobarr'd, which seems to happen once or twice a year.

Also, because I have no love of downloading World of Warcraft, or LoL patches at 50kb/sec, just because they are designed to use bittorrent instead of direct connects. I am aware you can change your downloader preferences in WoW to use a direct connection, but you can't in LoL.

Pump them through my VPN, and I get the full 30mbit.

[chienmort]

My point is that if someone is using a VPN to get 30Mb and others are doing the same, I am stuck on 4-5Mbps through no fault of my own.

The pipe is limited (so is BT's and eventually the smug Sky, Talk Talk and Infinity customers will find that out) and it is unfair that heavy users use VPNs or other dodges to hog bandwidth.

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by chienmort

My point is that if someone is using a VPN to get 30Mb and others are doing the same, I am stuck on 4-5Mbps through no fault of my own.

The pipe is limited (so is BT's and eventually the smug Sky, Talk Talk and Infinity customers will find that out) and it is unfair that heavy users use VPNs or other dodges to hog bandwidth.

It is not the fault of another customer actually using their connection either. VM just never provide anywhere near enough bandwidth for the customers they have.

VPN users are a minority and will not be the reason you get slow speeds.

My Sky Fibre gets installed tomorrow, I get to join the smug club

[Chrysalis]

its pretty clear VM severely under supply capacity, sky have no management whatsoever, BT have toned theres down signficantly from their adsl days, although it still exists it is toned down and they have nothing like STM.

VM still run 2 types of traffic management during peak and yet my VM graph looks a complete mess during peak almost every day. So it means one of 3 things.

1 - VM's traffic management is ineffective. Remember this is supposed to deal with the abusers.
2 - Under capacity
3 - Both

When I ran a glasnost test on my VM connection at 8pm it said no signs of shaping, so I guess the p2p shaping not working so good :p

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Qtx

It is not the fault of another customer actually using their connection either. VM just never provide anywhere near enough bandwidth for the customers they have.
VPN users are a minority and will not be the reason you get slow speeds.

My Sky Fibre gets installed tomorrow, I get to join the smug club

Depends on your point of view. For the few squids I pay for broadband, I don't expect a lot of peak time bandwidth. Mega-downloaders do things that their fees simply can't sustain at the speeds they want. Simples.

BTW, Sky Fibre: is that Sky's version of FTTC (i.e. last mile Openreach, LLU at the exchange)?

Originally Posted by chienmort

VPNs were designed to allow secure connections for outworkers connecting to company networks. They were not intended to assist people to get around traffic management.

Using a VPN as a consumer is the equivalent of the Audi Q8/Porsche Cayanne flying past stationary traffic on the hard shoulder.

Like everyone else I want as much bandwidth as I can get but my company VPN is capped at 1M.

I would be interested in hearing why people want to use VPNs.

I should also add that I am against Traffic Management but it is the lesser of two evils if it means my connection does not fall to dial up speeds.

ok its an easy enough question to answer. I use VPNs when I do not want my location IP and customer number given out.Look at the connection button top of the page click it. If you are on VM it gives way to much info out. I am not hiding on this forum at present but there have been times I have.

Also and I aint gonna lie sometimes when I can not find something I want off usenet I use torrents its only for the odd thing and because of the nature of torrents I do not like to seed from my IP.

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Depends on your point of view. For the few squids I pay for broadband, I don't expect a lot of peak time bandwidth. Mega-downloaders do things that their fees simply can't sustain at the speeds they want. Simples.

BTW, Sky Fibre: is that Sky's version of FTTC (i.e. last mile Openreach, LLU at the exchange)?

I have to disagree with you completely. If VM only sold up to 10Mbps then pretty much everyone could do what they want without there being any bandwidth issues. Customers have paid more to use more, it is just that VM can't cope with what they are selling. What cements this is the fact they will take on new customers and stick them on UBR's that are already noted as oversubscribed, so that customer has problems for day one.

Maybe a couple of times a month I needed download bandwidth at peak times, but what I needed more often was a stable jitter and packet loss free connection for gaming.

As for the Sky Fibre dig, that is just being pedantic. Pathetic even

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Qtx

I....
As for the Sky Fibre dig, that is just being pedantic. Pathetic even

That wasn't a dig at at all - it was a genuine question and I don't know how you can make a "dig" out of that question. I've got BT Infinity as well as XXL 100. My son games FPS better on Infinity 100% whereas it's satisfactory on VM only 95% of the time.

I was genuinely interested to know about Sky Fibre. Their web site is the usual hype and little substance and I also am given to understand that Sky have areas where they offer FTTP. So I was just curious as to which Sky offer you're going to take.

BTW if the current VM offer was "Virgin Media Fibre" there'd be outcry unless it was FTTP.

[Qtx]

The exchange is Sky LLU enabled, so if you call that Sky's version of FTTC then yes. I thought there was a hint of sarcasm in the wording of your question but if there was not, I apologise

So this information will allow you to make a judgement on how likely I am going to have issues, based on who's network my packets start their journey out on?

Generally with the main providers one would add 'fibre' to the brand name to mean that they do not have the adsl offering from the same company. If someone had FTTP at the moment they are likely to spell that out...

I don't get what you are saying with the "Virgin Media Fibre" statement. Maybe I was right about the pedantic bit at the start