VPN Again

[Dave Fritz]

We have a VPN on our PC which is connected to a satellite dish via the satellite company's modem/router. We feel we need the VPN so that's not an point to consider. Rather I'm asking about the throttling of our internet speed. We only have up to 25 Mbps max and in reality rarely have that. If we were to purchase a plan with say 100 Mbps would the throttling of our speed be less impactful, or would it remain the same? For example if our Mbps were 10 without VPN and 5 Mbps with VPN and we added a new plan with a Mbps of 100 without VPN would the Mbps with VPN most likely be 95 or 50? In other words, is the throttling a constant or variable depending on the Mbps. Thanks for your help. Living in rural Wisconsin and doing business has it's challenges.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Have you ran a speed test with and without the VPN active to confirm this hypothesis (that the VPN introduces a "throttling")?

[Brian Runau]

Some web sites don't respond well to VPN, lowes is one my norton vpn doesn't do well with. Brian

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I use the VPN that comes with McAfee. Consumers Reports and several other websites including some financial websites don't play well with it.

[Tony Joyce]

I just signed up with Express VPN about 6 weeks ago. I have 300MPS service with Spectrum.
I haven't noticed any speed throttling with my service.
The only problem I've stumbled on is I can not sign-in to my Spectrum account while using VPN.
Very happy so far.

[Jim Becker]

Sat service is a somewhat "different animal" to land based or even wireless services and adding any kind of overhead to what is already a technology that's loaded with overhead (overhead being communication stuff going on that's beyond your personal data stream to make that data stream work) it's potentially going to cause some issues. Adding a VPN adds overhead because of the encryption required to create a VPN from your device to wherever your VPN service drops your data stream off onto the pubic Internet. (You are not encrypted end-to-end; it only protects your data stream within the VPN, itself) Your particular sat service may be sensitive to added overhead and you might want to actually talk to the provider to understand if there's any reason you are getting cut back that hard. 50% is a big number.

[Bill Howatt]

In case it wasn't obvious from Jim's post, a VPN does not protect your data right to the destination site so you should ensure that the site address connection is https not just http which means it is encrypted. The VPN will hide your location since the destination site thinks you are at the VPN hand-off server location (this is why a lot of financial institutions and others choke with a VPN because they use your location as one of the security mechanisms). It will also hide your destination site from your ISP because it just thinks you are gong to the VPN server site.

[Dave Fritz]

Thank you. I just ran a speed test and with VPN on it was 10.2 incoming and 1.68 outgoing. With VPN paused it was 27 incoming and 3.23 outgoing so it's actually more than 50% slower. So if I upgraded to a faster package I assume I'd get more Mbps even with the VPN on? You're right about lots of overhead on satellite service. I have ViaSat but I've heard the same said about others, including Starlink. They tend to oversell the subscriptions so more and more are using the limited capacity of the satellite. You definitely see it at peak hours of the evening. End products seem to effect it too. My old Vizio TV would buffer all the time and even drop the program. My new LG is much better as it hardly ever buffers. My old iPhone gets, "no internet available" much more than my wife's newer iPhone does.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Why do you think you need a VPN?

[Dave Fritz]

Why do you think you need a VPN?

The intent of my post was to ask a specific question, not get off on a tangent about why I need or want or wish to have a VPN. I learned a lot about my specific question which I'm grateful for. So many times threads get off on something other than the original post. I didn't want that to happen. Perhaps a new thread asking why people purchase a VPN would be useful?

[Dan Friedrichs]

Sorry if I ruffled feathers. This forum (in particular) seems to have a much-higher-than-average affinity for VPNs, for reasons that are not clear, to me.

The reason I asked is that it seems like you're in a situation (satellite internet) that is really not great for VPN use (due to the added latency). As your test showed, disabling the VPN would more than double your speed. Well, why not do that, then? What is the advantage you get from the VPN (and is there some other way to get it that doesn't have such a negative speed impact)?

Many people have no idea what VPN does, but they feel like it's some sort of security blanket from threats they don't understand. Unfortunately, that means they aren't using it correctly, and probably not gaining any value from it.

[Bill Howatt]

I tend to agree with Dan, especially since the OP said, "We feel we need the VPN..", not a definite sounding requirement. Also, all threads tend to wander and this is a minor wander compared to many threads.
If we consider these forums as learning places, Dan's last paragraph gives enough justification for asking, IMO.

[Brian Elfert]

The intent of my post was to ask a specific question, not get off on a tangent about why I need or want or wish to have a VPN. I learned a lot about my specific question which I'm grateful for. So many times threads get off on something other than the original post. I didn't want that to happen. Perhaps a new thread asking why people purchase a VPN would be useful?

If you post on a PUBLIC forum you don't have any right to control the responses to your question. You have every right to ignore them and not answer them.

[Brian Elfert]

Why not switch to Starlink unless you have a contract? Starlink is an entirely different concept from the older satellite Internet. Starlink is constantly launching more and more satellites. They have something like 4,000 satellites now, and I have read they plan for a total of around 40,000 satellites.

The downside of Starlink is the cost. I have not read anything about Starlink intentionally throttling your speed if using a VPN. The use of any VPN is going to add overhead which will result in slower speeds. Those that use VPN on a wired broadband connection have Internet speeds so fast they probably don't notice the slowdown.