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Is Sprint Throttling LTE?


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Check out my Ookla Speedtest result. What's your speed? http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/735798088

 

Camden New Jersey

That's much faster than my VZW and AT&T speeds here in South Dakota!

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

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Yes and i am loving it,phone stays on LTE most of the time unlike before i have to do profile update or toggle airplane mode. I am in spark coverage no more hiccups......

That's good to hear!

 

And I think back on topic, Sprint isn't throttling LTE.

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All network connections are throttled when they are maxed out.  They only allow the maximum amount of data that can fit through all the parts of the network that the data is attempting to travel through.  Excess traffic is rejected and backs off to try again later.  This causes slowdowns. 

 

The problem is that when the back haul or wireless bandwidth is all in use, the users that are consuming the most get backed off a little and those who are using very little bandwidth are backed off by roughly the same amount.  The net effect is those users who are using very little bandwidth appear to have their speeds cut to very slow speeds until the network adjusts.  If for example a user is streaming Netflix at 4MB/s and the network connection saturates, Netflix will attempt to continue sending data at 4MB/s until it realizes that it has to slow down.  Meanwhile a user attempting to view a simple webpage will request the page and the page contents get caught up in the 4MB/s Netflix data trying to get through a network connection that cannot handle it all.

 

There are solutions to this problem that most providers of network services use, they are generally quality of service, traffic priority levels, bandwidth limits and bandwidth caps.  You can see this in effect on a Sprint site that is slow, sometimes you can still stream Pandora over it.  This is because on some sites, streaming audio appears to be prioritized over users accessing web pages.  Sprint is likely testing bandwidth limits on streaming video on some sites.  We shall see what other parts of this Sprint uses to manage their maxed out sites.

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Is this something that is band specific? Do you think the TD-LTE stuff will have this limitation? Is it only for video streaming or any heavy service?

Sprint reserves the right to throttle video streaming on all bands, but we have seen no evidence of them even doing that yet. Based on internal discussions, it is a future network control that will be added and used at specific sites/sectors when performance crosses a certain threshold and video streaming specifically is impacting performance at that location.

 

They are still working out specifics on the network side to implement it. But it will be on all bands, and used as necessary. Since Band 41 (TD-LTE) has much more capacity, it will likely be less affected than other bands. However, it is likely to be common on Band 25 sites that are experiencing congestion.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

On a related note: is Sprint compressing their web page traffic? I'm in Beaverton, Or with a LTE signal of -109dbm RSRP and RSRQ of -9db. Lately, I've been noticing over the past week that a lot of the images on web pages like radaronline.com, huffingtonpost (even the mobile site) are low resolution and blurry. I tried changing web browsers (the samsung browser, dolphin and chrome) to see if that helped. Same blurry pics

 

I compared the same web sites on a T-Mobile phone (note 3), and images are very clear and high-resolution.

 

Has Sprint been compressing web traffic for a while now or only recently?

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On a related note: is Sprint compressing their web page traffic? I'm in Beaverton, Or with a LTE signal of -109dbm RSRP and RSRQ of -9db. Lately, I've been noticing over the past week that a lot of the images on web pages like radaronline.com, huffingtonpost (even the mobile site) are low resolution and blurry. I tried changing web browsers (the samsung browser, dolphin and chrome) to see if that helped. Same blurry pics

 

I compared the same web sites on a T-Mobile phone (note 3), and images are very clear and high-resolution.

 

Has Sprint been compressing web traffic for a while now or only recently?

I have never experienced this on any network except AT&T. I have seen a couple people post this anomaly before, but most people say they haven't had this problem.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

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I have never experienced this on any network except AT&T. I have seen a couple people post this anomaly before, but most people say they haven't had this problem.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I use about 6 GB of data/month so I thought Sprint might be throttling me. But I went to Sprint Corporate store and kept seeing blurry and fuzzy images (not the text on the websites) on a Galaxy Mega, Note 3 and a G Flex when I tried using the phones' web browser to visit various websites.

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I use about 6 GB of data/month so I thought Sprint might be throttling me. But I went to Sprint Corporate store and kept seeing blurry and fuzzy images (not the text on the websites) on a Galaxy Mega, Note 3 and a G Flex when I tried using the phones' web browser to visit various websites.

I use 10 to 12 and don't have that issue, so why sprint would throttle you at 6 would be a mystery.

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What browser are people using as some browsers (opera?) can route traffic via their own servers to compress images and save data? Some uk isp's also did this but you could turn it off, this was back in the days of edge connections. 

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What browser are people using as some browsers (opera?) can route traffic via their own servers to compress images and save data? Some uk isp's also did this but you could turn it off, this was back in the days of edge connections.

I use chrome and Firefox. I've done a bit of research on my own(I experience this on LTE and 3g, I use 5-15GBs a month), Sprint apparently compresses images to conserve bandwidth. Only on non HTTPS websites, so apps/sites like Facebook aren't affected by this.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

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On a related note: is Sprint compressing their web page traffic? I'm in Beaverton, Or with a LTE signal of -109dbm RSRP and RSRQ of -9db. Lately, I've been noticing over the past week that a lot of the images on web pages like radaronline.com, huffingtonpost (even the mobile site) are low resolution and blurry. I tried changing web browsers (the samsung browser, dolphin and chrome) to see if that helped. Same blurry pics

 

I compared the same web sites on a T-Mobile phone (note 3), and images are very clear and high-resolution.

 

Has Sprint been compressing web traffic for a while now or only recently?

 

 

I have never experienced this on any network except AT&T. I have seen a couple people post this anomaly before, but most people say they haven't had this problem.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

I use chrome and Firefox. I've done a bit of research on my own(I experience this on LTE and 3g, I use 5-15GBs a month), Sprint apparently compresses images to conserve bandwidth. Only on non HTTPS websites, so apps/sites like Facebook aren't affected by this.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

I've seen this previously on my laptop when I would use my 3G aircard.  I started a thread about this about a year and a half ago when I was seeing some text saying the image quality was reduced:

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1797-sprint-image-quality-reduction-on-web-pages/

 

 

However, I haven't seen this in quite some time.  I'd guess probably since about the time my local towers were upgraded to NV. I can't say I'm 100% sure that's when it changed, but I haven't noticed this on my S3 or my laptop with the aircard in a very long time.

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Only on non HTTPS websites, so apps/sites like Facebook aren't affected by this.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Image quality is still reduced in at least one app: Huffington Post. Not sure about the others.

 

I tried resetting my phone and uninstalling some unused apps to see if that helped any. Nope. I visited a different Sprint corporate store across town. I tied 4 different phones -- still getting blurry pics when I visit websites like CNN. For comparison, I went to 2 different AT&T and 2 different T-Mobile stores (as well as a Verizon store) in the mall. The website pictures on the phones in those stores were all crystal clear compared to the phones in the Sprint store.

 

My only guess is that the reduced image quality is due to Sprint compressing the images and/or the limited 5x5 bandwidth that Sprint is using for LTE 1900.

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My only guess is that the reduced image quality is due to Sprint compressing the images and/or the limited 5x5 bandwidth that Sprint is using for LTE 1900.

 

It sounds like it's true in your instance.  But it is not true network wide.  Only a handful of people have reported this, and it's been reported for a long time by only a handful of people.  Maybe Sprint is trying to get rid of you?  :P

 

Robert

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It sounds like it's true in your instance.  But it is not true network wide.  Only a handful of people have reported this, and it's been reported for a long time by only a handful of people.  Maybe Sprint is trying to get rid of you?   :P

 

Robert

 I found this in another thread: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1797-sprint-image-quality-reduction-on-web-pages/?p=38070

 

"What specific types of optimization does Sprint employ?

Optimization is deployed for RTSP and HTTP video traffic and all HTTP web traffic. 

 

Web optimization uses three basic technologies:

  • Caching: Caches web pages to avoid delays associated with retrieval of the same internet content multiple times.
  • Text/Binary compression: Lossless compression of data and binary files using standard compression techniques supported by HTTP-compliant browsers.
  • Image Compression: JPEG and GIF compression designed to reduce the size of images while maintaining no user perceptible loss of quality."
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I found this in another thread: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1797-sprint-image-quality-reduction-on-web-pages/?p=38070

 

"What specific types of optimization does Sprint employ?

 

Optimization is deployed for RTSP and HTTP video traffic and all HTTP web traffic.

 

Web optimization uses three basic technologies:

  • Caching: Caches web pages to avoid delays associated with retrieval of the same internet content multiple times.
  • Text/Binary compression: Lossless compression of data and binary files using standard compression techniques supported by HTTP-compliant browsers.
  • Image Compression: JPEG and GIF compression designed to reduce the size of images while maintaining no user perceptible loss of quality."

And it only happens to some of you. We have found no pattern.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

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And it only happens to some of you. We have found no pattern.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Do you think it could be that some of us could just be in areas where our towers are overburdened, and that's why we're experiencing it but not others? I have noticed when I'm actually in St Louis/the metro area its doesn't occur (or its actually not noticeable to the user)

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

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Do you think it could be that some of us could just be in areas where our towers are overburdened, and that's why we're experiencing it but not others? I have noticed when I'm actually in St Louis/the metro area its doesn't occur (or its actually not noticeable to the user)

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Plausible.

 

Robert

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Sprint has compressed web data through their transparent proxies for a long time....when phones first started carrying native IP data and allowing web browsing, the trick was to refresh the page/image if it was overcompressed to get the non-compressed version (the proxy was smart enough to send the normal version in that case)...even tethering way back in the day you'd see compressed images in the regular web browser

 

I assume it's less noticeable now because of the increased use of https to encrypt traffic and connections which isn't as easily intercepted and compressed, but I do still notice compression when on the cell network that clears up when i'm on wifi (the chive app for instance)

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I still notice image compression on wifi... hmmm...

One possibility: If you've enabled data compression in Chrome, you'll see it on any network.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

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One possibility: If you've enabled data compression in Chrome, you'll see it on any network.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

bandwidth management is turned off in chrome. i also see compression in dolphin and samsung's browser too..

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