Hi there.  We've currently got our internet through Contact Energy. (Yes, I know, Not ideal)

I'm curious about something that we've been seeing... and I can't work out why it might be happening. 

We have some services that work a LOT better when we connect to a VPN first. 

Example 1

If we try to start a video call on Discord, the lag between video and audio is about 20s. Totally unworkable. 

But if we connect to Express VPN server first, suddenly it all works fine. 

Example 2

I am using a browser based multi-proxy server called Multi-Login. The theory is that it opens independent browsers, each with their own fingerprint, and each running through a proxy.  

If I connect just over Wifi or Ethernet, the speed of the websites I visit is terrible. Unusable. Like 1990s dial-up. 

But if I connect to Express VPN first, then to Multilogin, then it works just fine. 

The only thing I can think of is that Contact (or whoever is the "real" provider) is doing some kind of throttling on the traffic. 

But it's not consistent. Most services seem to work OK. Just a few that don't work. 

Maybe there's something in the protocol that Discord Video Chat and this MultiLogin tools are using that the broadband provider is throttling? 

Any ideas?

Thanks

Brett