Mobile data being throttled?

[haizman]

I've been using Subsonic for several years on my Unraid NAS at home. I have a 25/5 Mbps cable connection. For over a year I had a Verizon cell phone that worked flawlessly when streaming to the Subsonic (and then later DSub) Android client.

Around 6 months ago I switched to T-Mobile. The first few months were great - no speed issues downloading songs to the Android client. The last 1.5 months have not been great. When I start the DSub app, I have no problems connecting to my home server and enumerating through my MP3 collections, but when I start to play a playlist, the first 2 to 5 MB of song data will download at normal speed, but then it throttles down to 10k per second. This effectively makes the application unusable over the T-Mobile connection.

I've done a bunch of tests that seem to indicate T-Mobile as the root cause, but would like to know if anyone else has experienced similar behavior. Here are some of my findings -

My Home NAS /T-Mobile / DSub Android = Throttling
My Home NAS / T-Mobile (Co-Workers phone) / DSub Android = Throttling
My Home NAS / T-Mobile (Wife's phone) / DSub Android = Throttling
My Home NAS / T-Mobile (over Android VPN tunnel) / DSub Android = Normal
My Home NAS / Co-worker's ATT Phone / DSub Android = Normal
My Home NAS / Co-Workers Verizon Phone / DSub Android = Normal
My Home NAS / WORK ISP / Subsonic Web client = Normal
My Home NAS / T-Mobile USB tethering to Work computer / Subsonic Web Client = Throttling

Other data appears to be unaffected - as I can browse Internet data and run SpeedTest's all day long and get very fast speeds (30/20 Mbps sometimes). I opened a case with T-Mobile, but they are saying that they have not implemented any traffic shaping polices that might throttle MP3 downloads. The tests seem to indicate something different. I suspect my home IP address is not white-listed to prevent the throttling.

I think the tests I ran have definitively ruled out my home ISP as being the root cause. Any one have any thoughts if DSub settings might be contributing?

THanks!

[daneren2005]

They can claim they don't throttle all they want, but another user not that long ago had the exact same issues. If I remember correctly he said that they started throttling after ~500 MB, or something stupidly low like that. They seem to be shaping their traffic in such a way that it isn't entirely obvious in a lot of applications. I know the other user said that even though Subsonic traffic was being throttled, GMusic traffic was fine. You can try on the standard Subsonic app just to double check, but the fact that when using the web gui it also throttles seems to mean to me that it's not a DSub related problem.

[dispatch]

Gentlemen!

I have started experiencing the same issue. I originally attributed it to Android 4.4, but it affected my older phone on 4.3 as well. Guess what, I'm also on T-Mobile. However, I'm on their $70 all you can eat plan, which does not throttle after a certain amount of data. Happens with Sindre's client as well, so it'd be nice if we could move this thread...

I can corroborate ALL of haizman's findings as well.

So it appears that TMO made some change recently that is inadvertently (let's hope) throttling the stream. May I ask how you logged a case haizman? I'd like to do the same.

EDIT: I'm using Comcast as my ISP; could the culprit be Comcast shaping the traffic as it passes from them to the TMO network (or whomever the next hop is)?

[haizman]

EDIT: I'm using Comcast as my ISP; could the culprit be Comcast shaping the traffic as it passes from them to the TMO network (or whomever the next hop is)?

I think my testing rules out the home ISP (Cox, Comcast, etc) as being the problem. Only when the T-mobile network is used is where the throttling behavior occurs - with the exception of using a VPN tunnel from the Android phone to my home server.

Additional - I wanted to also add that many users are now reporting the same behavior in XDA and Howard's forums. It's also happening regardless if you have exceeded your monthly data cap or not. I'm on the 5GB plan (includes USB tether/mobile hotspot) and I've never breached that limit. I was thinking of saving the $5 per month and going with the truly unlimited plan...but what's the point if Draconian QOS policy is in place?

[alphawave7]

I don't use VPN enough to warrant paying a monthly fee, so I went with Private Tunnel, where I can pay for a GB 'bucket' that never expires. Their servers are very fast (similar to or besting my ISP), and in locations I might want to use. Desktop and Android versions, and multiple-device logins sealed the deal for me.

[dispatch]

EDIT: I'm using Comcast as my ISP; could the culprit be Comcast shaping the traffic as it passes from them to the TMO network (or whomever the next hop is)?

I think my testing rules out the home ISP (Cox, Comcast, etc) as being the problem. Only when the T-mobile network is used is where the throttling behavior occurs - with the exception of using a VPN tunnel from the Android phone to my home server.

Additional - I wanted to also add that many users are now reporting the same behavior in XDA and Howard's forums. It's also happening regardless if you have exceeded your monthly data cap or not. I'm on the 5GB plan (includes USB tether/mobile hotspot) and I've never breached that limit. I was thinking of saving the $5 per month and going with the truly unlimited plan...but what's the point if Draconian QOS policy is in place?

I'm getting no traction with my open ticket with T-Mobile. No surprise. Could you please link the relevant XDA or Howard threads? I'm having no luck finding them.

Also, I've tried SSL which curiously doesn't seem to fix the problem. I thought it would. Any ideas on why not?

[dispatch]

[s]I've noticed that I'm getting proper (or at least better) throughput on MP3s that are 128-192kbps encoded, as opposed to the 320kbps where the throttling is excruciating. Can anyone else confirm better behavior on lower-bitrate MP3s? [/s]

The above seems incorrect after further investigation.

###

Incidentally my OGG files (no transcode) did not fair any better and were throttled.

EDIT: OK, the situation continues to get weirder. I'm having mixed results on different mp3 bitrates now. Please see the linked picture where I am caching music in Subsonic (well, D-Sub). On the left half of the picture I'm getting throttled. On the right, I'm not (or lesser so, I still get better throughput on Wifi).

As of right now I cannot explain the difference between the files downloaded on the left and the files downloaded on the right. To be clear, I started caching an album, let it download about a half a song, stopped it in the app. Browsed to a random different album and began caching it. Voila the difference, which I cannot explain. Both of these albums were mp3s < 192kbps. I'm currently investigating if it affects both VBR and FBR mp3s.

http://imgur.com/b85k5eV