Proton VPN traffic statistics explained

The home screen of the Windows Proton VPN app lets you easily monitor your connection’s current and total traffic throughput. In this support article, we explain these metrics and how they relate to your overall connection speed.

Current traffic

This graph shows how much data is going through the VPN tunnel in real time, based on what you’re doing online.

In most ways, your current traffic statistics are directly analogous to your current speed, but there is a subtle difference that we’ll discuss below.

Do not confuse your current traffic speeds with your available bandwidth (the maximum speed possible for your internet connection).

• The green line shows the traffic downloaded from the internet to your device.
• The dashed red line shows the traffic uploaded from your device to the internet.

Total traffic

This is the total amount of traffic downloaded and uploaded since you connected to the VPN server. By default, the panel shows your total download traffic. Click on the panel to also see your total upload traffic.

Speed, bandwidth, and traffic volume

• Current speed is usually measured in Mbps (megabits per second) or Gbps (gigabits per second) and tells you how fast data travels through your connection. The higher the speed, the faster the data moves..
• Bandwidth is the maximum capacity of your internet connection — how much data your connection send at once.
• Total traffic and current traffic both measure traffic volume — the amount of data transmitted to and from your device. Larger volumes of data take longer to transfer, even with high-speed connections.

Think of it like traffic on a highway:

• Bandwidth = The number of lanes on the highway
• Data volume = The number of cars
• Speed = How fast the cars can safely move

So:

• Higher bandwidth = Less time needed to transfer the same volume of data (greater speed)
• Larger volume = More time needed at the same speed

For example, If you’re downloading a 1 GB file:

• At 100 Mbps, it takes ~1.5 minutes
• At 10 Mbps, it takes ~15 minutes

This example assumes that the data volume is high enough to max out the bandwidth of the internet connection. But in practice, most “normal” internet activity (like listening to music on Spotify or watching YouTube videos) doesn’t create enough traffic to be affected by bandwidth limits.

Let’s use our highway example to illustrate this. If only a few cars are on the road, then the number of lanes available doesn’t affect how fast the cars can safely move. You only need more lanes when there are lots of traffic.

So if you are watching a 4K movie, your partner is on a video call, another family member is downloading a video game, and another is updating Windows, your current traffic transfer demands might exceed your available bandwidth. This creates a “traffic jam” that will affect your current speed (this is the difference between current traffic and speed).

This can cause stuttering or lag issues, automatically reduced video resolution, and slower download times.

VPNs and bandwidth

When you use a VPN, your maximum available bandwidth is determined by the limits of your internet connection and VPN server. Most Proton VPN servers offer 10 Gbps connections, so if you use a Plus server, your maximum bandwidth will likely be determined by the limit imposed by your ISP.

(Our free servers also use 10 Gbps connections, but the larger number of people using them can cause “traffic congestion,” reducing the available bandwidth.)

For a discussion on server load and other factors that affect your internet speeds when using a VPN, plus ways to increase them, please see Understanding and increasing VPN connection speeds.