Using a VPN together with Aircall can affect your call quality if your network traffic is not routed correctly. This article explains what a VPN is, how it can impact your Aircall experience, what split tunneling is, and how it can help. It also provides example resources for configuring split tunneling with several common VPN solutions.
What is a VPN and how can it impact your Aircall experience?
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows a user to connect securely and privately to a private network over the internet. The VPN creates an encrypted connection, known as a VPN tunnel, and all internet traffic and communication is passed through this secure tunnel.
A VPN adds an extra hoop for traffic to pass through, which:
Increases latency
Adds extra encryption and security policies
These factors can impact VoIP traffic and therefore affect your Aircall call quality.
When using a VPN, why is split tunneling recommended?
Split tunneling is a VPN feature that divides your internet traffic and:
Sends some traffic through the encrypted VPN tunnel
Routes the rest through a separate tunnel on the open network
Typically, split tunneling lets you choose which apps should be secured and which can connect normally.
This is useful when you need to keep some of your traffic private, while still maintaining access to local network devices. With split tunneling you can:
Access foreign networks through the VPN
Access local networks at the same time through your regular connection
How does VPN split tunneling work?
To understand VPN split tunneling, it helps to first look at how a VPN connection works in general.
By default, your device usually has a single, direct connection to the internet, through which your data is sent and received.
When you use a VPN:
A secure connection is created between your device and a VPN server
The VPN server then accesses the internet on your behalf
All data is sent and received through this secure VPN server
This setup keeps your data completely encrypted, but because everything has to travel through the VPN, it can also slow your internet speeds.
Split tunneling changes this by giving you two connections at the same time:
A secure connection through the VPN
An open connection directly to the internet
This allows you to protect your sensitive data through the VPN, without slowing down your other internet activities that do not need the VPN tunnel.
Different types of VPN split tunneling
There are a few different ways to implement VPN split tunneling.
URL-based split tunneling
URL-based split tunneling lets you choose exactly which URLs you want to be encrypted through the VPN. This is usually configured using a VPN browser extension.
App-based split tunneling
App-based split tunneling works in a similar way, but at the application level. It lets you choose which apps you want to be routed through your VPN, while the rest of your traffic travels through your regular network.
Inverse split tunneling
Inverse split tunneling works the opposite way to the previous examples.
With URL-based and app-based split tunneling, everything goes through the open network by default, and you select what should go through the VPN.
With inverse split tunneling, all traffic is automatically sent through the VPN unless you specify otherwise.
In other words, with inverse split tunneling you choose which URLs and apps you do not want to go through the VPN, instead of choosing the ones you do.
Examples of split tunneling configuration resources
- Aircall Traffic: IPs and Ports Needed For Split Tunneling
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ExpressVPN split tunneling configuration
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NordVPN split tunneling configuration
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OpenVPN split tunneling configuration
These resources describe how split tunneling can be set up with each respective VPN provider.