Is it normal for my speed to drop to around half without VPN?

I might be doing something wrong or not sure if its normal. I have a Slate and a Slate plus and I tried this at 2 different location. I ran a several speed test from different website. When I connect directly to the wifi, I get about 200 mbps download and upload. When I connect i through the Slate or Slate Plus. I get about roughly half of that. This is without any VPN. Am I doing something wrong or is it normal? The VPN data center is in the same city I am testing it from.

Yes because it is be distributed over 2 Ethernet and a Wireless access point in the router. So you essentially just added 3 devices to the connection to put it simply.

What do you mean by that? Can you provide more detail? What should I be doing to maximize the speed? I am not connecting 1 GLI inet to another GLI net modem. I am just testing 2 different ones out.

I assume you mean you are connecting via wifi from a device to another wireless router, and comparing that to connecting via wifi from a device to a slate or slate plus, which is connected via wifi to the wireless router?

If so, this makes the slate/slate plus a repeater, which means it receives traffic over its radio from the device, and then turns around and sends the traffic over its radio to the wifi router; then the traffic turns around and goes the other way. So the maximum throughput of the radio is halved.

I see. I didn’t know it will halve the speed. Was under the impression it will get roughly the same speed without a VPN on. Are there any other way to use the router beside a repeater if I don’t have access to the main router?

Use a 5ghz with a bandwidth of 40 or 80. Use 2.4ghz with a bandwidth of 40(older devices don’t like this).

Packet steering in LuCi has made some improvements on speed for the Beryl AX GL-MT3000 not sure if you have that option.(Note: the beryl ax was strictly repeating not doing dns or VPN)

Oh yes. The defining characteristic of a travel router, apart from a more portable size, is the ability to use the wireless radio as a WAN connection. It is convenient to call this “repeater” which far understates what is going on. But all extenders/repeater have this halving.

But these GL-iNet travel routers have a WAN port, and at least one LAN port. They also come with a flat Ethernet cable. Pack that, and maybe a USB-ethernet adapter for your laptop.

So, when you arrive at your location, you have three possible configurations. If you have no access to that location’s router, you have the repeater function. If you have physical access to the router, you might be able to find a LAN ethernet port on the back. (He shoots! He scores!). Now you have an access point. Really good for a Mango.

If you don’t have physical access to the router, but you are only going to use one device, you can connect your device with an ethernet adapter to the GL-inet device, and it wireless to the local router.

Why? Because you can load up the travel router with your customisation onto the travel router (like VPNs, adblockers, logging, file sharing) and travel with it, then just conform the local bits.