VPN for Everyone

Greetings from the Blackbeard Coffee Shop in Greenville NC. I am back on the road for a few months now that the holidays are behind us and the cold Ohio Winter has settled in.

While I was home for the holidays, my brother said that he had noticed that my Mom’s bank account had small transactions coming in and out over a period of a few months. We think that It was someone trying to get a feel for how close we were watching the account so that it could slowly be drained without anyone noticing it was gone until it was too late. Lucky for us, bad actors seem to have become pretty patient. We locked down the account but it started me thinking that I better start practicing what I preach regarding internet security.

I am back to traveling as much as 90% of the time these days and am heavily reliant on the internet to keep my financial and business affairs in order. I haven’t found an unlimited mobile data plan that works for me so to stay under my cap, I am forced to rely on public wifi at airports, libraries, hotels, coffee shops, etc. whenever possible. Using public wifi has always made me hesitant to access any of my password protected accounts and websites for fear that someone was watching and there is really no way to tell.

With tax season upon us, I wanted to reduce the stress of living with that risk. I did a quick internet search for “Personal VPN”. It used to be that Virtual Private Networks were a big business solution to allow secure access to the corporate network for remote and traveling employees. As with most technology, the costs of VPN set up and ongoing management has fallen and gotten simpler. It is easy for even the smallest of businesses to set one up. Most recently, numerous providers offer low cost and easily set up VPN services that make it readily available to the general public.

As evidenced by my search results, there are a lot of providers so I narrowed my search to Personal VPN Reviews and started making my way through the results. Just reading the reviews was educational in that I learned what impacts VPN quality, i.e. internet speed impact, cost, international access, etc. I looked at the top 3 rated in each of the reviews and ended up choosing on price.

I am just starting to use the VPN but have noticed that there is a speed impact. I did a speed test here at the coffee shop with and without the VPN turned on.  

As you can see, the VPN connection was slower by at least half. The coffee shop’s open connection is pretty fast so even Netflix and YouTube videos worked smoothly over VPN.

The hotel is another story though. There aren’t many other guests to share the bandwidth but it is still pretty slow. With the VPN turned on, the application I use to type this blog on lost the connection and froze.   Youtube and Netflix streaming is not working. 

 

Although the hotel speed difference with VPN isn’t that much different, it was enough to impact the usability. 

All in all though. I am glad I have it. It isn’t too hard anymore to find bandwidth fast enough to support the impact of going over a VPN. The very slight inconvenience is easily offset by the added security. 

Teledata Select offers a whole range of services that will help you meet your business goals. Starting with a complimentary review of your current telecommunication bills to identify errors and find opportunities for savings, better service and more functionality. We also offer project management for new service implementation and infrastructure installs, including fiber and low voltage cabling. Call us at 404-257-1502 to discuss your current Telecom Service Solution and what you would like to get out of it. Or send us a note via This Link to start a no obligation discussion of your specific business technology needs.

Don Miller is a PMP certified Project Manager splits his time between Atlanta and Seattle. He has come to Teledata Select via Seattle, New York and Washington DC. His experience running small to multi-million dollar projects in the Banking, Software, Telecommunications and Insurance Industries across the US has given him a wide range of business experience.