Gigafast and Cisco VPN

[BobbySpray]

Hello, I am being driven crazy by the performance of my broadband through VPN. I use Cisco Anyconnect to connect to my work.  However, despite having a 500Mbps connection, when using VPN I get a grand total of 6Mbps, a non VPN connection returns 500Mbps as contracted. The slow speed through VPN is making teams call using video impossible and affecting my ability to work from home. I am normally kicked out of my connection multiple times per day. I have ‘chatted’ with Vodafone with no success and they have pointed at either Cisco or my work server. I have spent a long time with my own IT department trying to fix this and I appear to be the only person in a workforce of 500 who experience this problem. Any help or pointers you can give me would be appreciated

BS

[CrimsonLiar]

As your router is not involved with the VPN encapsulation it would probably point to whatever it is you are using to create the VPN, and what else that device is also doing at the same time!

I'm only on VDSL but with the Asus router here managing VPN encapsulation my speeds are only a little reduced when using OpenVPN, Wireguard, or PPTP.

So out of curiosity what VPN speeds are your co-workers achieving?

[BobbySpray]

my co workers aren't all on Gigafast or indeed Vodafone - so who knows. Here's the latest test from today - less than 1% of the contracted speed! 

[CrimsonLiar]

Having done a few tests, I guess my next question is what device are you using!

So connecting to the same server as you, running a OpenVPN on the following devices:

Laptop:  10Mbps down,  11Mbps Up

Poco F3 Mobile: 21Mbps down, 11Mbps Up

Asus GT-AX6000 router 41Mbps down, 11Mbps up - that's not discernably different from connecting without a VPN  

VPNs can make quite a performance hit, it could possibly be that the limit here is from your device and not the connection!

[MillerJones]

This is not a Voda issue you already said it's fine when VPN is not connected.

[purrbox]

Downgrade to VDSL, gigsfast is the problem. They route people miles away to load balance the network. This interferes with the VPN and makes it slow, not to mention gaming and VOIP.

There is no fix and Vodafone refuse to accept their load balancing is a problem.

Gigafast is not suitable  for gaming and working from home.

Check out the gigafast high pings thread.

[Jayach]

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@purrbox wrote:

Downgrade to VDSL, gigsfast is the problem. They route people miles away to load balance the network.

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The routing problem is occurring on FTTC/VDSL as well.

[CrimsonLiar]

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@Jayach wrote:
The routing problem is occurring on FTTC/VDSL as well.

I'd been under the impression that the general routing issue was confined to CityFibre - frankly, when someone started moaning about fluctuating NANO seconds (not even milli-seconds) I probably decided it wasn't worth the effort.

What I have noticed with the common issues though, is that they seem to apply to all data not just VPN data as the issue is happening within the VF/CF managed network and not the wider internet!

[Jayach]

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@CrimsonLiar wrote:
What I have noticed with the common issues though, is that they seem to apply to all data not just VPN data as the issue is happening within the VF/CF managed network and not the wider internet!

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In fact, if you use a VPN, the problems seem to go away, as it obviously somehow by-passes the congested part of the Vodafone network.

I'm referring to VPNing out (using something like NORD) rather than VPNing into a work server as the OP is doing.

At least that is what I understand from the various threads.