Why is it that when I use VPN on Wi-Fi, the speeds are fantastic? My ISP provides 500 Mbps, and with VPN, it’s 400 Mbps. I’m happy with these results.
However, on my cellular network, it’s a completely different situation! I have an S23 Ultra using 5GUW. I can get speeds of up to 1 Gbps per second, but my average is around 200 Mbps to 900 Mbps all around Miami! But when I use VPN on Cellular, my speeds stay around 25 Mbps per second or worse! Why is this? On Wi-Fi, it’s fantastic! What’s going on here?
There are 3 indicators at speed tests;
Speed (which people normally just look into)
But the other two are no less important:
Latency: “how long does it take to get to the end point” - gamers are familiar with this, they call it “ping” or “lag”.
Jitter; the difference in latencies between packets. A high jitter means an unstable connection.
Another thing is the path it takes, that’s what “traceroute”/“tracert” tools are for. They get a map between you and your end point. If in between there’s some router forgotten there since the 90’s speed will be throttled there.
As you’re talking about different ISPs (your home and cellular one), probably the routes of one and another to your VPN provider are different with throttles in between.
Another note about speed tests; ISPs normally host their own speed test servers and normally will try to enforce it for you “to test”, yet this ends up with you testing your “LAN” and not your internet speed, for internet, try to test as far as possible. You’re in US, try to test at some European country instead for direct tests. Your “1 Gbps” ISP may be the one throttling the connection… Check several points in the globe.
I’ve noticed I can get MUCH different speeds on different servers with my VPN provider, so much so that I’ve learned pretty much which exact servers to connect to. Here’s a speedtest I just took while being connected to one.
Just so we’re on the same page here, you know your maximum download speed at your VPN client device is the UPLOAD speed of your VPN server, right?