VPN & Astraweb EU: Speed Tests

[Hypatia]

I've started looking for a new VPN provider today. I don't really need it for usenet per se since I use SSL anyways, but I prefer to test my internet connection speed using EU astraweb server for various reasons. I need vpn mostly to circumvent unlawful government censorship that has been spreading like a wildfire this year and protect my anonymity from Putin's chekists & watchdogs when I post certain stuff :D

I tested only a few VPN providers, the ones I could get my hands on so to speak.

My location: Russia
My plan: 100mbit
Non-VPN speed: ~10.5-10.7 MB
Testing server: eu.news.astraweb (server location - Amsterdam, 18 connections, Astraweb Usenet provider)
Date:Friday, 8 august, 18:30- 19:40 GMT
Protocol: UDP

Airvpn & Astraweb EU:

Netherlands\Erakis:~8-8.5MB
Netherlands\Propus:~8-8.5MB
Germany\Seginus~9.5-10MB
Luxemburg\Herculis:~8+MB
Switzerland\Virginis: ~1.2 MB =))
Spain\Nihal:~3.5MB
Sweden\Cygni: ~8MB
Romania\Phoenicis:~ 7+MB
UK\Nunki: ~9MB


Mullvad & Astraweb EU:

Sweden: ~ 7-8MB
Netherlands: ~ 8.5-9.5MB
Germany: ~8-8.5+MB

Bolehvpn & Astraweb EU:

Luxemburg: ~7.5-8MB
Netherlands: ~8MB
Sweden: got connected but for some reason nothing worked at all
Switzerland:~8+MB
UK:~9+MB
France: ~5+MB

Just keep in mind several things:

1) I tested only some servers located in EU

2) I don't know whether they would shape traffic if you download at these speeds loads of data

3)Maybe I got lucky as in their servers were not overloaded and there was enough spare bandwidth ( this might be especially true for airvpn coz you can monitor server load user wise in real time and most of the servers I used didn't have many users.

4) it doesn't mean you'll get comparable speeds downloading stuff from web servers/ your location

5) I have no idea whether their connections are reliable or not because it was just a quick test run.

6) upload speed wasn't tested

I was really impressed with Mullvad price\speed ratio. For just 5 euro you get real nice speed. But there are only 4 servers( for some it might be a problem), their client is a bit primitive although it does have some nice features like dns leak protection,block internet on connection failure and some minor settings available. I'm somewhat skeptical about their account protection - you get only account number and that's it lol, no passwords, no nothing.
That's a bit strange

Bolevah was OK, they have a nice client but not many settings , there were some servers that didn't work at all.
Airvpn has a shitload of servers to offer, their client is very informative (server load,number of users per server,protocols, ports,portable version available etc) with LOTS of options including advanced ones.

Speed wise these three VPN providers are quite good. At least in MY experience. As for customer service I have no idea how these three would fare.

It would be nice if you could post about ur experience with VPN providers. ;)

[Beck38]

Unless my eyesight is really going, nowhere do I see where your listed the VPN 'out' port. You need to set that to as close to the usenet server you are trying to connect to, so for the Dutch places, Amsterdam is best. then for the others, again, as close as you can get to them.

If you chose an 'out' port in Moscow, you're defeating the whole purpose, plus probably probably getting slower throughput as the ISP's can 'see' the traffic type and apply the dreaded traffic shaping to it; and going to, say, Amsterdam for a final destination or Sweden or wherever, the same applies.

I occasionally use Giganews (US/LA) instead of Astraweb (US/SJ), and dropping out of the VPN in SF (San Francisco) and traveling 'non-tunneling' the lousy 300-350 miles from SF to LA is noticeable, particularly as my VPN provider has 'out' ports in the very same telco-hotel/data center in LA that Giganews is housed in; so when I change the port to LA, I get 20+% more throughput (right up to my ISP speed, which I have to admit right now is a pitiful 27/7 Mb/s) which is what I get from Astra going through SF.

(a brief aside: I did some of the first fiber builds into 600 West 7th Street in downtown LA in 1998-9, where Giganews is nowadays; I think at that time they were still in Phoenix).

[Hypatia]

nowhere do I see where your listed the VPN 'out' port. I'm afraid you'll have to explain this to me, I'm not that savvy VPN wise ;) I just choose a VPN server to connect to and that's it.When I get connected via Mullwad client , for instance,it shows something like address: server's address, port,protocol (udp\tcp).
Their client has also this available:

Ports
Ports for receiving incoming connections from the internet. To make other computers on the internet able to initiate contact with a program on your computer such a port number can be set in that program. Use Manage to add more ports.
and in advanced settings:

[DEFAULT]
port = any
hard_dns = False
protocol = any
location = xx
disable_ipv6 = True
obfsproxy = auto
server = any
delete_default_route = False
exclude_swedish = False

[Client]
delete_default_route = True
exclude_swedish = False
location = nl
protocol = any
server = any
port = any
id = **************
hard_dns = True



Airvpn client has this:
http://imgur.com/rm7ILwQ,GrVUONg#0
And you can set up forwarding ports through their site:
http://imgur.com/rm7ILwQ,GrVUONg#1
PS Atm my ISP doesn't do any traffic shaping so what I get is what I get and I'd say 5-8 MB for any VPN provider is a pretty good result for the price they ask.

[Beck38]

Any VPN tunnels (using PPTP or OpenVPN/IPSec) data either from your machine or a VPN enabled router (which will tunnel all your machines or devices at once fell swoop) through the public internet to a port attached to the internet in the place of your choice. Period. If you're dealing with some service that doesn't tell you WHERE it comes back out onto the pubic internet, that's NOT a VPN service, I don't know what it is.

All VPN services have servers/ports scattered around the planet. The biggest differentiation between services is, basically, how many ports they have in those cities (or servers), and how many (at any time) they have 'open' or 'idle' for your use. On top of that is the data service (speed) they may have at any location, almost most are at least OC48 (or STM-16 in Euro language) if not more (i.e., 2.4Gb/s).

Lots of folks seem to think that VPN services need to be 'non-logging', but really, any that actually are, get 'hit' by the spammers and other organized crime, and quickly go out of business, as their port IP's get identified and blocked by the ISP's. True idiocy.

So, you need to find out where that 'tunnel' you're using ends (the start point being whatever s/w system you're using at your end). A tunnel with one entrance and no exit.... isn't a tunnel. And someone who isn't telling you where that exit is, is a... I don't know what.

[Hypatia]

Well, by the looks of it it works as intended. When I do tracert to a site X, it changes accordingly to how traffic goes.
This one is when I get connected to a Netherland server:
1
Tracing route to eu.news.astraweb.com [91.208.207.171]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 59 ms 59 ms 59 ms 10.9.0.1
2 59 ms 59 ms 59 ms hosted.by.leaseweb.com [37.48.65.92]
3 60 ms 60 ms 60 ms 37.48.95.202
4 60 ms 60 ms 60 ms hosted-by.2is.nl [81.17.32.4]
5 60 ms 60 ms 70 ms po-1-0-0.bb1.ams1.nl.m247.com [195.69.144.63]
6 60 ms 60 ms 61 ms te-4-1-3557.bb1.ams3.nl.m247.com [77.243.189.13]
7 60 ms 61 ms 60 ms netrouting.xe-2-4-0.bb1.ams1.nl.m247.com [77.243.180.150]
8 60 ms 60 ms 60 ms unknown.ams.astraweb.com [193.202.122.56]

this is my ISP's tracert:
Tracing route to eu.news.astraweb.com [91.208.207.171]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 122 ms 27 ms 18 ms ppp92-100-64-1.pppoe.avangarddsl.ru [92.100.64.1]
2 9 ms 2 ms 2 ms ae1-30g.MX960-1-MMT.nwtelecom.ru [212.48.198.246]
3 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms 188.254.78.25
4 45 ms 45 ms 45 ms xe-12-1-0.uak3-cr1-b.sz.ip.rostelecom.ru [87.226.133.237]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 65 ms 64 ms 64 ms po-7-0-0.bb1.lon1.uk.m247.com [193.27.64.157]
7 65 ms 65 ms 65 ms te-3-3-0.bb1.bru3.be.m247.com [193.27.64.241]
8 65 ms 65 ms 65 ms te-2-1-0.bb1.ams3.nl.m247.com [193.27.64.145]
9 48 ms 49 ms 48 ms netrouting.xe-2-4-0.bb1.ams1.nl.m247.com [77.243.180.150]
10 48 ms 48 ms 49 ms 91.208.207.171

I think we misunderstood each other. I think by the "out port" you mean what I stated in my fist post like , say, Netehrlands, Sweden etc, where this or that particular server is hosted (your "out port")
Obviously, when I choose an "out port" located in Netherlands it works faster than the one located in France.

P

[Beck38]

The correct term for changing what your out port is, is 'switching'. The VPN vendor probably limits you (almost all do, but there are a few that don't but they generally have problems as 'popular' cities get overloaded and the don't have any proactive maintenance on the switching) to how many 'switches' you make a month, although most limit their subscribers to 1 per day (or 30 per month).

So I guess you are 'switching' the out port at will, to the closest point to your targeted usenet server (Amsterdam in your example above) and you should get good throughput. BTW, when talking telecom/data, keep things in BITS not BYTES, BYTES are for computers not transmission.

But any rate. you've got such a high data rate connection that it's probably going to give any VPN vendor a real run for their money. I hope to maybe move in the next year to get on fiber and have that kind of speeds, but I wonder just how much the usenet servers can toss the bits! Of course, the throughput won't be 'better' than a 'direct connection', but how close going thru the VPN will get is the real big question; it will rely on that vendors interconnection point hardware.

But if you're hitting 70Mb/s+ going through Amsterdam, and your basic ISP line rate is 100Mb/s, that's probably pretty darn good, especially as your direct non-VPN rate is hitting 84Mb/s, so the fiber routing all the way across the continent is doing pretty darn good, and the VPN isn't slowing you down that much at all.

Geez, I'd live with it (!). I guess the Swiss, French, and Spanish are lagging behind the times, but the Brits are going gangbusters; but I'll hazard a guess that your primary target (for Usenet) is going to be Amsterdam and that looks pretty good.

I'd suggest, if you're really getting into this, a VPN modified router, although the good ones (speedy) are a bit on the pricey side, but with them you can run all the 'goodies' like Netflix and such, connecting to (where-ever).

But again, really looks like you're good to go, check out the pricing, how many switches they allow, and how many ports they have in x cities. Have fun!

[sandman_1]

BTW, when talking telecom/data, keep things in BITS not BYTES, BYTES are for computers not transmission. BYTES are for computers not transmission.


Wrong, data transmissions are done in decimal so either bits or bytes could be used to measure transfer speed. Some speed test sites can be configured to measure in bytes, ie speedtest.net.

Bytes are for computers? I am sure the bits will feel left out. :D Joking a side, you are comparing two different types of measurements: speed and size. A size unit in a computer is different and measured in powers of two. However speed is always in decimal.

http://www.wu.ece.ufl.edu/links/dataRate/DataMeasurementChart.html