VPN for ATT Fiber

[czrabode]

Hi. I'm considering using my ASUS RT-AC86U as a VPN client.

I have ATT gigabit internet where I live and consistently get 940 Mbps on a wired connection.

I tried NordVPN and was very disappointed to see my speed drop to 140 Mbps.

Is there any well regarded VPN service that will get me to at least 800 Mbps?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[doczenith1]

I doubt you'll find any VPN service in the 800 Mbps range. Your 86U will max out around the mid to upper 200's using it as a VPN client. I use PIA and using their Windows client on my computer I've seen mid 200's down and mid 400's up. Most of my testing was just over a year ago. I did some more recent testing using the new GCM cipher with my 86U and saw some upload tests around the 300 Mbps range.

I just ran this test.

 

[CaptainSTX]

You have at least three issues to overcome to get the speeds you are dreaming of. Only one of which you have any control over.

1. Hardware. I tested last May using a Pfsense VPN device. It had a reasonably fast I7 processor and running the VPN tunnel and testing to StrongVPN, PIA and Astrill I was hard pressed to get to 400 Mbps with open VPN. To see what your provider might be able to do with a high powered processor run a VPN client app on your most powerful PC you own. This is going to be your upper limit.

2. It is fairly typical for many VPN providers to put 128 clients per server. Then either their servers don't have the processor power to handle multiple VPN clients or they don't have a big enough pipe to the Internet. Given what commercial VPN server providers charge monthly it seems unlikely to me that they can or will do much to solve this problem if they want to stay profitable. This was not much of an issue when most cutomers only had 25 Mbps connections and a few lucky ones had 100 Mbps connections but now with gig connections becoming more common it is an issue. I'm sure that some VPN provider will try and differentiate themself by offering higher speeds at premium prices and it isn't going to be inexpensive.

3. Finally distance. The further you are physically from the VPN server the slower your connection is going to be until someone develops a way to accelerate the speed of electrons and photons to beyond the speed of light.

 

[czrabode]

You have at least three issues to overcome to get the speeds you are dreaming of. Only one of which you have any control over.

1. Hardware. I tested last May using a Pfsense VPN device. It had a reasonably fast I7 processor and running the VPN tunnel and testing to StrongVPN, PIA and Astrill I was hard pressed to get to 400 Mbps with open VPN. To see what your provider might be able to do with a high powered processor run a VPN client app on your most powerful PC you own. This is going to be your upper limit.

2. It is fairly typical for many VPN providers to put 128 clients per server. Then either their servers don't have the processor power to handle multiple VPN clients or they don't have a big enough pipe to the Internet. Given what commercial VPN server providers charge monthly it seems unlikely to me that they can or will do much to solve this problem if they want to stay profitable. This was not much of an issue when most cutomers only had 25 Mbps connections and a few lucky ones had 100 Mbps connections but now with gig connections becoming more common it is an issue. I'm sure that some VPN provider will try and differentiate themself by offering higher speeds at premium prices and it isn't going to be inexpensive.

3. Finally distance. The further you are physically from the VPN server the slower your connection is going to be until someone develops a way to accelerate the speed of electrons and photons to beyond the speed of light.

Thanks for this info. I currently have 2 ASUS RT-AC86U on a wired backhaul set up for AiMesh. Do you think if I replaced one of them with the top of the line Asus router (like GT-AC5300), I'll get a higher speed when using the router itself as the VPN client? How much higher? If I went this route, does both of the routers need to be GT-AC5300 to get the speed benefit? Or will the main one be enough.

From what I read you wrote, even on a Pfsense device with i7, the fastest I can expect is around 400? I was considering going the Pfsense route. A high-end Asus router (like GT-AC5300) will be much simpler for me but I wonder what the speed difference will be.

 

[czrabode]

I doubt you'll find any VPN service in the 800 Mbps range. Your 86U will max out around the mid to upper 200's using it as a VPN client. I use PIA and using their Windows client on my computer I've seen mid 200's down and mid 400's up. Most of my testing was just over a year ago. I did some more recent testing using the new GCM cipher with my 86U and saw some upload tests around the 300 Mbps range.

I just ran this test.
View attachment 16237

So is PIA one of the fastest VPNs? What other VPNs do you know of that will go above 350 Mbps on a fast hardware?

 

[CaptainSTX]

You will probably have to do your own testing. While gig speeds are becoming more readily available many people don't select this speed because of the premium price and lack of a real need for this speed/bandwidth and even if they do have gig service they won't have a rig optimized for super fast VPN processing. Last May when I had Comcast's gig speed I didn't get VPN speeds over consistently over 250 Mbps on either PIA or Astrill and I was using a VPN appliance with an I7 processor that supported AES-NI. Things might have changed but I haven't seen any mention on this forum of speeds approaching what you are looking for.

Use your PC with a wired connection directly to your modem and run theVPN client provided by your potential VPN provider and see what it can do connecting to the server you want to use. Even with the best router you will probably get less throughput than using your PC probably because the PC has a better/faster processor than a SOHO router.

Most VPN providers will give you a weeks or months service for less than $10. I'm sure that someday a VPN service will offer ultra high speeds for their speed freak customers who are willing to pay the price and the price won't be $3.95 per month.

 

[doczenith1]

I only have experience with PIA.