Multi threaded hides congestion.

Notice some of my speedtests here, both yellow and green lines are the same, this is showing no congestion:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/14770058691...
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/14833184342...
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15456040365...

Compare this with yours
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15455638705...

Notice the green line is way below the multi threaded.
Yours shows clear congestion here.

If you imagine you had 10Mbps shared between 2 people.
2 single threaded downloads would be 5Mbps each.
Now say you download something with 20 threads, and the other person has 1 thread, you will suddenly get the lions share of the connection.

This is why multi threaded "hides" congestion...

A speed test shows single thread 10Mb but muti-thread 70Mb
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15455947657...

That is excessive congestion, please see my other post in relation to this.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Its *NOT* congestion, if it was congestion then *everything* would be slow

This is not true, you do not understand how the internet works if you believe all traffic is routed identically.

When you use the VPN, then yes all your traffic is routed via the VPN, and that route is likely not congested.

Your speedtests show very very clear congestion and your ISP is known for congestion widely.

Read the traffic management document published:

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/cs/groups/public/documents...

NO traffic is managed. They cannot lie about this... It is documented and formally captured.

1. You've linked me to the mobile traffic terms, completly different, even ofcom treat it differently.

2. I have access to several hundred hosted servers within microsoftcloud and google's cloud, a file download from these performs slower than if I VPN to the same server and download the same file, both the route there and the route back is identical as I own both ends and therefore can see the route traffic takes in each direction, I hope to have a spare server that i can do a wireshark capture to full analyse after the xmas break. Equally I can bouce my traffic off over 100 different UK VPN servers using 73 different routes, all demonstrate the same issue. Encrypted VPN traffic always performs at a better speed to the any download source sampled than a direct connection.

My speed test does not show congestion, if there was, then all tests would show a throughput hit, my speed test clearly shows there isn't congestion as I can obtain maximum throughput.


All ISP's employ traffic management, it would be iresponsible for them not too - this allows them to keep the network running if/when they have a major fault affecting their network, in these cases they can apply QOS to ensure that specific traffic can get through the congestion.

The question is - at what point does Vodafone move from deploying their solution (which I am sure they currently are) in order to protect their network to the stage of just leaving it deployed as it means they don't need to invest in the backend infrastructure to support their growth and their real bandwidth needs.


Finally - back to my point - i get less than 1MB/sec for *any* nntp traffic no matter where its hosted, compared with full 8MB/sec when hidden behind a vpn even a VPN to the same nntp server (so highly likely to be indentical router there and back as non VPN traffic) - that is not congestion, its not bad luck, its not the direction of the wind, it is only that speed for 1 reason, and that is that it has been prioritised much lower than all other traffic.
.

Edited by Tam (Sun 23-Dec-18 22:54:29)

1. You've linked me to the mobile traffic terms, completly different, even ofcom treat it differently.

Sorry on mobile: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/cs/groups/public/document...
The statement stands.

Note the document includes "This KFI gives an overview of typical traffic management practices undertaken on this product; it does not cover circumstances where exceptional external events may impact on network congestion level."

2. I have access to several hundred hosted servers within microsoftcloud and google's cloud, a file download from these performs slower than if I VPN to the same server and download the same file, both the route there and the route back is identical as I own both ends and therefore can see the route traffic takes in each direction, I hope to have a spare server that i can do a wireshark capture to full analyse after the xmas break. Equally I can bouce my traffic off over 100 different UK VPN servers using 73 different routes, all demonstrate the same issue. Encrypted VPN traffic always performs at a better speed to the any download source sampled than a direct connection.

That does not prove anything as a VPN is routing traffic differently.

My speed test does not show congestion, if there was, then all tests would show a throughput hit, my speed test clearly shows there isn't congestion as I can obtain maximum throughput.

Your speedtest shows absolute crisp clear congestion, others here will agree when they come online and read this. Your single thread is 10Mbps, your multi is 70, that is congestion.

All ISP's employ traffic management, it would be iresponsible for them not too - this allows them to keep the network running if/when they have a major fault affecting their network, in these cases they can apply QOS to ensure that specific traffic can get through the congestion.

Find me ANY mass market ISP (talktalk, sky, plusnet, BT, EE) where they have traffic management and document this as required. This needs to be in the form required per the voluntary code of conduct. The statement "All ISP's employ traffic management" is false. Almost none do anymore... I have been in this game for 11+ years, and I have worked with almost every big name provider from an infrastructure standpoint.

The question is - at what point does Vodafone move from deploying their solution (which I am sure they currently are) in order to protect their network to the stage of just leaving it deployed as it means they don't need to invest in the backend infrastructure to support their growth and their real bandwidth needs.

They do not deploy a traffic management solution.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 23-Dec-18 23:05:02)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

1. You've linked me to the mobile traffic terms, completely different, even ofcom treat it differently.

Sorry on mobile: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/cs/groups/public/document...
The statement stands.

Note the document includes "This KFI gives an overview of typical traffic management practices undertaken on this product; it does not cover circumstances where exceptional external events may impact on network congestion level."

ISP's never lie .... ok then!

That does not prove anything as a VPN is routing traffic differently.

Either you didn't read what I wrote or you don't understand what you are talking about...

Your speedtest shows absolute crisp clear congestion, others here will agree when they come online and read this. Your single thread is 10Mbps, your multi is 70, that is congestion.

Seeing as the speed test servers are probably prioritised any way (It's certainly what i'd do) then its a poor test - if it *was* congestion 6x wouldn't be a neat and smooth as it is. - go look at proper congested ISP results they are still spiky even on 6x test..

Find me ANY mass market ISP (talktalk, sky, plusnet, BT, EE) where they have traffic management and document this as required. This needs to be in the form required per the voluntary code of conduct. The statement "All ISP's employ traffic management" is false. Almost none do any more... I have been in this game for 11+ years, and I have worked with almost every big name provider from an infrastructure standpoint.

All do... fact. None hopefully use it - but all will have it setup to deploy if necessary.

They do not deploy a traffic management solution.

You sound very much like a vodafone employee saying that - here's an example: This is a file download, then a file download over VPN - the start point of the VPN is my machine, the end point of the VPN is the SAME server as the download is from, this is NOT a VPN to some hosted server which then goes to the server with the file on, this is the SAME server, I'm either downloading straight, or encrypting it and downloading - can you see the difference? Pretty easy to spot - So why two different speeds? - That is shaping prioritising traffic differently as one it can see is NNTP and the other it cannot.

8 thread download on NNTP traffic
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2zwicxssc79em0x/donwload%2...

Same 8 thread file download with VPN terminating ON the server providing the file.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oggyzcx9nwrh1uq/donwload%2...

Edited by Tam (Sun 23-Dec-18 23:34:19)

I won't keep on this same spiral.
ISPs are regulated entities they do not deliberately lie and mislead consumers.

This is not congested with BT:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/14833184342...

It is very different to yours...

EDIT: I see your points and if you had a Speedtest like the one I have linked I would likely agree, and then I'd go away and investigate.

Can you do a traceroute with and without the VPN to the server in question?
Something is different... there is no guarantee VF is handling your traffic the same just because it ends at the same place.

I'd conclude your non VPN traffic is hitting congestion for whatever reason. Most likely VPN a traffic is routed by Vodafone in such a way that the congestion is not manifesting.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 23-Dec-18 23:48:15)

If Vodafone is prioritising speed test servers they are doing an amazingly bad job of it.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8239-peak-and-of...

Slow single download speeds is generally what is seen before things get worse and multiple downloads start to shift into the spiky area and everyone starts to complain

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5134-new-adverti...

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Its *NOT* congestion, if it was congestion then *everything* would be slow

This is not true, you do not understand how the internet works if you believe all traffic is routed identically.

When you use the VPN, then yes all your traffic is routed via the VPN, and that route is likely not congested.

Your speedtests show very very clear congestion and your ISP is known for congestion widely.

Read the traffic management document published:

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/cs/groups/public/documents...

NO traffic is managed. They cannot lie about this... It is documented and formally captured.

Although that document doesn't seem to say anything about what they do with IMAP traffic on port 143. Admitedly it's not throttling but I have proof that they are interfering with the data stream and removing STARTTLS commands. My assumption is that it's an attempt to perform virus scanning.

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Broadband/Pro...

Yep VF have some issues in the way their filtering works. Poorly implemented and it meant for years sites such as imgur didn't work correctly.

There's still plenty of talk on forums of the "filtering" and oddities such as what you are reporting. They could be different issues and I suspect they are, but overall it doesn't surprise me.

I don't think I've seen concrete proof of what is actually occurring. Explanations have ranged from man in the middle and certificate spoofing, to the IWF filters.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

My assumption is that it's an attempt to perform virus scanning.

How would they handle implicit TLS IMAP traffic over port 993?