Need help with Mullvad VPN

A

Adwaith

Beginner
Hi TE!

I've been using Mullvad VPN for a few years now and was largely satisfied with it. In December 2024, I ended up renewing my subscription for another year.

Lately I have been facing severe issues with speeds. For example, my BSNL FTTH give me 200 Mbps, without VPN, but with it, its only about 40 Mbps. The issue is not as pronounced on Jio 4G, but I get about 8 Mbps with VPN and 22 Mbps without it. This issue persists across networks and devices and even the 20Gbps servers of Mullvad provide no respite.

I've changed the the DNS on the devices, the router and on the Mullvad application, but that didn't help. I also tried changing the NAT settings, but that didn't help either. I'm rather stuck with this issue, with no hope for a refund, since I'm well past the 30 day window.

If anyone could please help me remedy this, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!
 
Adwaith said:
Hi TE!

I've been using Mullvad VPN for a few years now and was largely satisfied with it. In December 2024, I ended up renewing my subscription for another year.

Lately I have been facing severe issues with speeds. For example, my BSNL FTTH give me 200 Mbps, without VPN, but with it, its only about 40 Mbps. The issue is not as pronounced on Jio 4G, but I get about 8 Mbps with VPN and 22 Mbps without it. This issue persists across networks and devices and even the 20Gbps servers of Mullvad provide no respite.

I've changed the the DNS on the devices, the router and on the Mullvad application, but that didn't help. I also tried changing the NAT settings, but that didn't help either. I'm rather stuck with this issue, with no hope for a refund, since I'm well past the 30 day window.

If anyone could please help me remedy this, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!
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Are their any specific regions that are causing speed drops?
 
PunkX 75 said:
Are their any specific regions that are causing speed drops?
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I've tried different regions and servers, but no dice, unfortunately.

soulweaver said:
You could probably sell your Mullvad subscription to someone and try something else. Or vice-versa!
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PunkX 75 said:
Precisely, since Mullvad doesn't link any of your personal info. You just get an account number.
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I hadn't thought about that, but I don't have those privileges yet, either way.
 
One reason could be the several cables in Red Sea were cut, and in general they've lost quite a bit a capacity to Europe. I have seen marked increase in pings and decrease in speeds to Europe in the last couple of years. One more complication is some Tier-1s not interchanging traffic with others in Asia. Examples being TATA-Cogent-HE-NTT. A lot of this information is kinda hard to get, and is not usually advertised.
 
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privateer said:
One reason could be the several cables in Red Sea were cut, and in general they've lost quite a bit a capacity to Europe. I have seen marked increase in pings and decrease in speeds to Europe in the last couple of years. One more complication is some Tier-1s not interchanging traffic with others in Asia. Examples being TATA-Cogent-HE-NTT. A lot of this information is kinda hard to get, and is not usually advertised.
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I read something similar on reddit too and the timeline matches up ig. That being the case, I don't think switching to another VPN provider is going to help with my predicament. I'll just stick to Mullvad for the time being.

Thanks a lot, for your reply!
 
Maybe a typo, this was in march 2025. Heard that we lost at least 25% capacity. combine that with depeering issues, My excitel traffic goes to HK for singapore server, europe pings have increased from 135ms to 200+ depending on network. Most VPN servers use cogent/HE backbone coz they are cheap. Best way to find out what is causing the issue is to check a trace route to the vpn server you are connecting to, find out who's at fault, or pick a server which has better peering and lower load.
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privateer said:
Maybe a typo, this was in march 2025. Heard that we lost at least 25% capacity. combine that with depeering issues, My excitel traffic goes to HK for singapore server, europe pings have increased from 135ms to 200+ depending on network. Most VPN servers use cogent/HE backbone coz they are cheap. Best way to find out what is causing the issue is to check a trace route to the vpn server you are connecting to, find out who's at fault, or pick a server which has better peering and lower load.
View attachment 229503
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The comment I saw on reddit, is about 10 months old.

I don't know the first thing about how to check a trace route I'm afraid.:sweatsmile: Had to write my networking paper twice for a reason, lol.

I've most often been on Singapore servers. Have tried different servers, but no real luck.

Dhanush said:
Try Proton VPN... No buffering even with the free plan
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Will try that. Thanks!
 
So, out of curiosity, I checked traceroute from my Excitel Connection to Mullvad servers in singapore. https://mullvad.net/en/servers?country=sg Mullvad uses 2 vendors/backbone in Singapore, M247 or Datapacket. In ideal conditions, ping to singapore should be 45-50ms from my place. It's 305 ms to Mullvad (M247) and 180ms to Mullvad (Datapacket). Shit routing either way. It means, it's not ideal to connect to these servers from Excitel. I might have better luck with Europe/Japan servers.
In comparison, I tried to the same servers from Airtel. Comparatively better routing. M247 Sg Mullvad server has a ping of 65ms, and Datapacket(CDN77) has 49ms. If I have an airtel connection, I may consider connecting to these servers.
 
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