Is my data being throttled?

[ThaKizzle]

I honestly thought that the only thing they cared for was overall data usage on a daily basis, like how much data was transferred and NOT how it was transferred...

All companies care is just that st has a way to tell how data is being used. When I was with red pocket I tether all the time and never had any problems whatsoever. I have yet to do it since being with st but I guess I know
now that's going to work out.

[ThaKizzle]

I mean how not

[DannyNY]

I had the same throttled issue since I received their 1800 call last month.

I tried the same sim on both iphone and android. Did both speed test apps and websites loading. It appeared to me that when the apn proxy was not set the speed was capped at 128 kbps. However on iphone there's nowhere to put apn proxy to confirm this.

Now that I just read your posts. I'll need to give them another call regarding this.
Thanks for sharing!

Once you were throttled did it remain like that even when your new month started?
I'm curious if the throttle stays on the account indefinitely until you call them or if it resets to unthrottled when the new month starts.

Great news if Straight Talk is throttling instead of terminating service & making you lose your #.

[ndtv88]

Main thing is he admitted to tethering - with ST saying we can't even stream Netflix, tethering is tantamount to capital murder. (And yes, they can tell you're tethering no matter how much data you're using.)

They can tell tehering on the iphone, or if it ATT branded bloatware phone, for newer androids/ custom roms, IT is not possible to know about tethering, unless you do something obvious like streaming video on 2 devices etc.

[Pabster]

They can tell tehering on the iphone, or if it ATT branded bloatware phone, for newer androids/ custom roms, IT is not possible to know about tethering, unless you do something obvious like streaming video on 2 devices etc.

Actually it is very easy to decipher a tethering session by looking at the raw packets passing through. Some tethering apps attempt to "mask" the behavior but if the operator really wants to they can tell you are tethering quite easily...streaming or not.

[bobkoure]

...looking at the raw packets passing through...

Interesting. I don't tether but I'm curious as to what exactly in the raw packets they might be looking at/for.
Are they looking for signs of there being a NAT? If so, then a one-to-one NAT or a symmetric NAT should hide it - but I can't think of any hotspots that do this.

BTW, I've been wondering if they even can throttle without a proxy going through their servers.
As an experiment, I removed all proxy info (and switched to straight 'internet' in my APN - and immediately got speedtests showing about 40% faster (but unchanging ping times, which makes sense).

[maestroteague]

Don't want to hijack this thread, but the subject of tethering being able to be detected has raised a question for me. I understand from this and other threads that when you tether a laptop, then the packets and such will show what browser is being used, etc. but what about tethering an iPad to my iPhone. If I am using the safari browser on my iPad, will that look any different at all than my safari browser on my iPhone? They're both iOS, and don,t know of any difference other than the size of the screen that may make for a different resolution. So would they be able to tell that? Honestly, my iPad, which is wifi only, is the only thing I would really ever need to tether to my phone that I can think of. What say you, good people?

[robsay24]

I'm definitely being throttled. My speedtests avg 150kbps. I've never gone over 2gb/mo or tethered. I believe the cap is 100mb/day. My 3g watchdog log shows I reached this limit 3 times in the last few months. That would explain why my service was shut off about a month ago and had to call CS to have it working again. I guess the following time I went over the cap they throttled my data. I'm probably going to switch to Red Pocket or Jolt when my current service period ends. Sure it's $15 more a month but at least I'll know that 2gb/mo actually means 2gb/mo and I won't have to deal with Filipino CS agents that tell me they need to replace my sim card anytime I call to say something minor is wrong with my service.

[bobkoure]

If I am using the safari browser on my iPad, will that look any different at all than my safari browser on my iPhone?

I don't know what they're doing to detect tethering, but I would suspect they're detecting network address translation (NAT).
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918

I'd never really thought about this being detectable because a NAT box simply replaces fields in an outbound packet header (return address and return port) and then, when a reply comes back, uses the return port it assigned on the outbound packet to figure out which internal address and port to send the packet to, again replaces fields and forwards the packet to the internal machine. (that's a port-forwarding NAT, which is I think what hotspots pretty much all use - there are other ways to do NAT).

So the question becomes: what are they detecting? It could be as simple as iOS and Android both use predictable ranges of reply ports, and a hotspot will use a range outside these.

If they're not detecting NAT, then connecting through a VPN first and then tethering should at least make the tethering difficult to detect, as the packets in the channel should be encrypted, headers and all.

I don't tether - but it's an interesting puzzle.

[bobkoure]

Actually, I might someday tether - but it would only be if a client was having an emergency, I had no network access but needed to RDP in. I'd run something like that through a VPN as a matter of course (duty of care to protect the client's data security).
Haven't done this yet - the one time I needed to there wasn't any cell data either (wilds of Maine)... so I drove 15 miles to the nearest library.

[NothingLasts]

Once you were throttled did it remain like that even when your new month started?
I'm curious if the throttle stays on the account indefinitely until you call them or if it resets to unthrottled when the new month starts.

Great news if Straight Talk is throttling instead of terminating service & making you lose your #.

I think I was throttled. I started using Straight Talk service a month ago on my AT&T unlocked iPhone 4. I ordered an AT&T micro SIM through ST's BYOD program and set up the APN using an old cut down T-Mobile sim I had sitting around. I have never tethered and don't plan on it, but I do steam audio/video from time to time and download new apps often. About 20 days into my service I noticed my download speeds had decreased quite a bit. On average, with 3G, speedtest.net showed 128ms ping, .12Mbps download, and 2.93Mbps upload. I was never once warned about data use but I figured maybe I hit the 2GB monthly limit and that it would jump back to regular after I activated a new card. I was wrong, my new service started today and I was showing the same speed test results. I called ST's CS and the rep told me that speeds weren't guaranteed but did a reset of my sim card or something, he had me power down my phone and reset something then after I turned the phone back on I was back up to 74ms ping, 5Mbps down and 3Mbps up, what I was averaging before the throttle started. He never even questioned my data usage or mentioned using too much. So I'm not too sure what was up but hopefully it won't happen again. I'd like to continuously use 3G without worrying about a data limit, but I guess I'll live with my slow rural area wifi while at home.

[ndtv88]

I think I was throttled. I started using Straight Talk service a month ago on my AT&T unlocked iPhone 4. I ordered an AT&T micro SIM through ST's BYOD program and set up the APN using an old cut down T-Mobile sim I had sitting around. I have never tethered and don't plan on it, but I do steam audio/video from time to time and download new apps often. About 20 days into my service I noticed my download speeds had decreased quite a bit. On average, with 3G, speedtest.net showed 128ms ping, .12Mbps download, and 2.93Mbps upload. I was never once warned about data use but I figured maybe I hit the 2GB monthly limit and that it would jump back to regular after I activated a new card. I was wrong, my new service started today and I was showing the same speed test results. I called ST's CS and the rep told me that speeds weren't guaranteed but did a reset of my sim card or something, he had me power down my phone and reset something then after I turned the phone back on I was back up to 74ms ping, 5Mbps down and 3Mbps up, what I was averaging before the throttle started. He never even questioned my data usage or mentioned using too much. So I'm not too sure what was up but hopefully it won't happen again. I'd like to continuously use 3G without worrying about a data limit, but I guess I'll live with my slow rural area wifi while at home.

If you dont mind my asking, do you have a data counter app, how much data did you use, what were the daily highs etc.

[NothingLasts]

If you dont mind my asking, do you have a data counter app, how much data did you use, what were the daily highs etc.

I didn't use any sorta app, but with my typical data usage from when I had AT&T, I would guess I was at about 1.75-2gb when it started. No way of knowing for sure, but I may have went over 100mb a few different days earlier in the 30 day period. I downloaded dataman to use this month and see what happens, but I'll be using wifi more so I may not get to 2gb.

[nanoera]

Once you were throttled did it remain like that even when your new month started?
I'm curious if the throttle stays on the account indefinitely until you call them or if it resets to unthrottled when the new month starts.

Great news if Straight Talk is throttling instead of terminating service & making you lose your #.

I asked them to provision the data twice but speed still throttled. Will wait until next month to see if it gets lifted. I am on a longer contract with them so I hope not to wait until my contract end.

I think I'll go with red pocket $60 or T-Mobile $30 5gb. At least they don't throttle based on daily usage.

[11fabe]

My data is throttled i dont know why


Maybe this is the reason

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