Evening peak congestion is the last thing anyone wants. Overloaded servers slow everyone down. ProtonVPN recently completed a global server expansion to address exactly that.
As remote work and cross-border access grow, popular regions were running high load. The expansion spreads users across more servers for more stable quality.
1. Why expand
Over the past year, ProtonVPN active connections kept climbing, with some regional nodes peaking above 70% load. High load causes slowdowns and failed connections, so the expansion moved up the roadmap.
2. New nodes & links
The expansion added servers across multiple countries, upgraded key backbone nodes to 10Gbps links, and improved the load-balancing algorithm to route new connections to idle nodes first.
| Upgrade | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Backbone | Mostly 1Gbps | 10Gbps backbone |
| Load balancing | Static | Dynamic smart routing |
| Coverage | Limited | New regions added |
3. Impact on users
After the expansion, peak-hour latency on popular nodes dropped noticeably and connection success improved. A user who uses cross-border services in the evening said he used to switch nodes repeatedly, but now one connection lasts the whole evening.
The server network is the foundation of VPN experience. To verify this expansion yourself, open ProtonVPN for a free vpn download and try a popular node.
