Why is my download speed faster via an overseas proxy or vpn?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Why is my download speed faster via an overseas proxy or vpn?

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Nebbie

458 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 29

Trusted

#1613218 17-Aug-2016 13:29

linw:

Have you done the tracert's? This info will be needed to follow up your problem.

In deed +1

Trace Route the Following:

1.) The Server with NO VPN Connected:
2.) The VPN IP/DNS Address:
3.) The server with the VPN Connected:

(Keep in mind that these trace routes show your downstream path, the only way to get the upstream path is do the same trace routes from the servers and I doubt that will ever happen)

Latency has a lot to do with slow speeds In New Zealand not so much when dealing with traffic locally, Trace routes can give an indication as to the problem maybe traffic is being routed via non-optimal routes or optimal routes and these will differ from ISP to ISP.

Orcon can't do much without seeing these trace routes, also giving the trace routes and the IP/DNS address other users can run trace showing you what other ISP's or even other Orcon users experiences might be.

A good ping path app for windows is WinMTR Google it! (Google is your friend)

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Nebukadnessar

DarkShadow

1647 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 656

#1613241 17-Aug-2016 14:01

toaster:

using direct connection with a smart DNS proxy

You're misunderstanding how a smart DNS works.

A smart DNS does not get you a direct connection. It is actually a proxy that routes specific services like that video streaming site through it.

What the results show is that the transparent proxy is better than the VPN which is better than the smart DNS.

This is not an Orcon problem. Rather it's the choice of unblockers that is influencing your speeds.

toaster

62 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#1613245 17-Aug-2016 14:12

DarkShadow:

You're misunderstanding how a smart DNS works.

A smart DNS does not get you a direct connection. It is actually a proxy that routes specific services like that video streaming site through it.

What the results show is that the transparent proxy is better than the VPN which is better than the smart DNS.

This is not an Orcon problem. Rather it's the choice of unblockers that is influencing your speeds.

Interesting.

What you're saying here is not what various Smart DNS providers have told me.

They all claim only the first bit of traffic goes through DNS proxy, just to unblock the service, but the actual content data transfer is all done with a direct connection.

So either all Smart DNS providers I asked are lying about this, or you are wrong. The question is, which is it.

yitz

2239 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 594

#1613269 17-Aug-2016 14:46

Can you at least tell us which geographical region the VOD service is targeted?

In general you are likely to have better connectivity to sites in North America/Europe than say Asian countries (China, India etc.) or a Latin America or African country.

antoniosk

2382 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1613281 17-Aug-2016 14:54

Most ISP's will probably employ some form of traffic management to try and keep their service level somewhat acceptable. If they can see 100k users hitting netflix, then they can try to 'do things' either by shunting the traffic into a smaller transparent channel and keep some space for the other services.

The streaming boom did catch a lot of businesses out as we know, and you can either choose to expand everything at great cost, or manage your traffic down and hope no-one notices :-)

A VPN encrypts the traffic so nobody knows what it is unless they go about unpacking and inspecting everything (which requires tremendous CPU resources to do, not to mention decryption). So even though packet sizes are bigger, you don't know what's in it.

________

Antoniosk

toaster

62 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#1613282 17-Aug-2016 15:00

I thought of that, but Orcon replied saying they do no throttling of any kind. Would they lie to their customers so blatantly?

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ubergeeknz

3344 posts

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+1 received by user: 1041

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Vocus

#1613300 17-Aug-2016 15:12

The performance you get from overseas sites depends partly on your local ISP having enough bandwidth into that region, and selecting the best peering, but connections on the Internet aren't symmetric - so your experience depends also on the peers that the other party is using to reach us - and they may not use the best/closest peering, for a multitude of reasons.

If you have provided all the details into a support ticket, we can certainly look into it, although I cannot guarantee we can improve it. Flick me a PM with the ticket number so i can bring it to the attention of the right team.

DarkShadow

1647 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 656

#1613633 18-Aug-2016 09:54

toaster:

DarkShadow:

You're misunderstanding how a smart DNS works.

A smart DNS does not get you a direct connection. It is actually a proxy that routes specific services like that video streaming site through it.

What the results show is that the transparent proxy is better than the VPN which is better than the smart DNS.

This is not an Orcon problem. Rather it's the choice of unblockers that is influencing your speeds.

Interesting.

What you're saying here is not what various Smart DNS providers have told me.

They all claim only the first bit of traffic goes through DNS proxy, just to unblock the service, but the actual content data transfer is all done with a direct connection.

So either all Smart DNS providers I asked are lying about this, or you are wrong. The question is, which is it.

Does your streaming service tell you what server it's serving you from? You can confirm using that. eg for Netflix press Control+Alt+Shift+D while playing.

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