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Smartphone speedtest speeds down after connecting to VPN

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Adam Popiel

Occasional Visitor
Hello Everyone,

So i have this problem. I have an asus rt86u and a 250/25mb connection in my house. When i turn off the VPN i get the full 250/25 results from speedtest.net When i turn on the VPn, my laptop gets 160-230/24 which is great for me but my mobile telephones (HTC U 11 & Huawei p30PRO) get only about 40/25 which is strange. It looks like it a setting in the router?? Im on a 5GHZ home wifi network and i cant seem to figure out what the problem is. As soon as i turn of the VPN client on the router, the speeds on both my laptop and the telephones get almost the full bandwith 250/25. What could be the issue here?

Many thanks for the responses.
 
laptop speeds with and with out vpn

with vpn:

upload_2019-12-10_12-44-51.png


without vpn:

upload_2019-12-10_12-45-8.png
 

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I didn't really look in detail at your screen captures, but if you are asking if routing through a VPN makes your internet access slower, then that is the expected behaviour.

If you are routing all traffic through the VPN, then when "on", all devices will see the speed change. This is a function of the VPN overhead on the router and more important is the speed and capacity of the VPN server you are connecting to.

If you understand all this already, then sorry for the basics.

If this isn't the issue, then more information is likely required. Which VPN? Paid or free? What is the expected capacity and speed of the server you configured?

Edit,: in rereading this, are you really just asking why you smartphone is slower than your laptop when running through a VPN?
 
For one, for more accurate result, you should tests the closest and fastest speedtest server and choose only to compare result with one speedtest server.... I'm mean 4 screenshot with 4 different speedtest servers? Time to stop using the automatic choosing of server and test which server is cloeset, and highest performance for you than start comparing...
 
For one, for more accurate result, you should tests the closest and fastest speedtest server and choose only to compare result with one speedtest server.... I'm mean 4 screenshot with 4 different speedtest servers? Time to stop using the automatic choosing of server and test which server is cloeset, and highest performance for you than start comparing...

This can be tricky. The fastest speedtest.net server for me is about 15 down on the list so not the closest. Found it by luck. Pings are around 4ms vs 7-8ms for servers closet to me. Perhaps some sort of peering with my ISP. My situation is a little different in that I have a very fast connection so a server that can provide accurate results is not always the closest server.

This is why my go to speed test site is DSL Reports. It will use multiple servers in multiple locations and typically provides good, accurate results. When testing on a phone or tablet I check the "use desktop site" as I prefer the interface better.
 
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