Encrypted sessions throttled on Mobi?

**donbalaan** · 12-19-2011, 06:57 PM

Hi

I consistently get between 1.5-2.1Mbps down in the area I am with Mobi using speedtest whether it is on the phone or a laptop tethered to it.

Today I decided to connect to my work via Wifi hotspot. To do this, I use an IPSec client for security reasons. However, I noticed my connection to be very slow and barely usable for anything intensive over IPSec. A quick file transfer test showed I was averaging 5.5KB/s!!! So I disconnected IPSec and tried a speed test...and I'm back to 1.9Mbps... login to work.. slow...

Next to isolate this, I get home tried a file transfer from work over cable Internet connection and bam... I get 900KB/s download. This shows it's not my work connection and would point solidly at Mobilicity throttling encrypted connections. My guess is they do a broad throttle against bittorrent users who have encryption which indirectly affects people like me who have a genuine use.

Would there be other Mobi subscribers experiencing the same issue?

**computergeek541** · 12-19-2011, 07:01 PM

If you use a proxy/encrypted tunnel/anonyninizer, all data transfer will get throttled because Mobilicity's network won't be able to detect the type of activity that you are doing. When you do this, Mobilicity's throttling software assumes that you are conducting activities such as watching high resolution video.

**bluenote73** · 12-19-2011, 07:18 PM

Actually I would guess that if anything, the assumption is that its P2P traffic.

**computergeek541** · 12-19-2011, 07:21 PM

When I was a Mobilicity customer, P2P was completely blocked. High resolution videos were just slowed down so much that you wouldn't want to continue such activities, but they would still load.

**xtachx** · 12-19-2011, 07:29 PM

Originally Posted by donbalaan

Hi

I consistently get between 1.5-2.1Mbps down in the area I am with Mobi using speedtest whether it is on the phone or a laptop tethered to it.

Today I decided to connect to my work via Wifi hotspot. To do this, I use an IPSec client for security reasons. However, I noticed my connection to be very slow and barely usable for anything intensive over IPSec. A quick file transfer test showed I was averaging 5.5KB/s!!! So I disconnected IPSec and tried a speed test...and I'm back to 1.9Mbps... login to work.. slow...

Next to isolate this, I get home tried a file transfer from work over cable Internet connection and bam... I get 900KB/s download. This shows it's not my work connection and would point solidly at Mobilicity throttling encrypted connections. My guess is they do a broad throttle against bittorrent users who have encryption which indirectly affects people like me who have a genuine use.

Would there be other Mobi subscribers experiencing the same issue?

Mobi DOES throttle encrypted connections. This is because the people who download large volumes / torrents started using VPNs to bypass the throttle. As a result, now VPNs are throttled too.

**quickinferno** · 12-19-2011, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by xtachx

Mobi DOES throttle encrypted connections. This is because the people who download large volumes / torrents started using VPNs to bypass the throttle. As a result, now VPNs are throttled too.

but vpn is used for work purposes as well....

**xtachx** · 12-19-2011, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by quickinferno

but vpn is used for work purposes as well....

So is the entire connection. We could have had fast 3g but abusers will quickly find out and ruin it.

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**will888** · 12-19-2011, 09:12 PM

Perhaps it is time for mobi to drop the unlimited mantra and set a reasonable limit so that the abusers don't spoil it for the rest of us.

**keyzink** · 12-19-2011, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by will888

Perhaps it is time for mobi to drop the unlimited mantra and set a reasonable limit so that the abusers don't spoil it for the rest of us.

Exactly. Why not set a soft cap like Wind does, and let users enjoy full speed up to that point? This keeps the regular users happy, and abusers incapable of causing trouble.

**donbalaan** · 12-19-2011, 10:17 PM

It's unfortunate for folks like me who had intentions to be able to work from any where with a cell reception.

Just wondering if we get shafted on HTTPS sessions too? Lots of websites these days support HTTPS and if that's throttle too Mobi would just degrade everyone's experience of using their mobile network. Where as WIND has the right idea of Fair Usage Policy and give people max bandwidth up to a limit and then drop them down to dial-up.

**pjw918** · 12-20-2011, 09:32 AM

Bell to stop internet throttling - CBC Dec 20

--
There are legitimate uses for IPsec/VPN security. 5.5KB/s isn't throttling, it's blocking. If it's intended to 'prevent network instability' Mobilicity's throttling should be based on abusive volume/bandwidth and should not be designed to cripple a protocol.

**hashim71** · 12-20-2011, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by computergeek541

When I was a Mobilicity customer, P2P was completely blocked. High resolution videos were just slowed down so much that you wouldn't want to continue such activities, but they would still load.

I'm able to stream about 40 minutes of Netflix everyday without any issues.

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**hashim71** · 12-20-2011, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by pjw918

Bell to stop internet throttling - CBC Dec 20

--
There are legitimate uses for IPsec/VPN security. 5.5KB/s isn't throttling, it's blocking. If it's intended to 'prevent network instability' Mobilicity's throttling should be based on abusive volume/bandwidth and should not be designed to cripple a protocol.

I cant even get VPN to work on my panache. Any ideas ?

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