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  • 1 Post By shafiq

Does SmarTone throttle MP3?

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    6,180

    Does SmarTone throttle MP3?

    I noticed something strange lately:

    Since beginning of Feb I'm on the cheap uncapped SmarTone 720K LTE plan ($106/m). Basically that plan is fine.

    But when I d/l a MP3 it starts quick, and then get's slower, and eventually get stuck after 5Mb or so. On the 3G plan there was no such problem.

    My workaround is Shadowsocks VPN, that restarts a stalling connection automatically.

    Just wonder if anybody else has similar SmarTone problems?


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    14,414

    My friend was on a similar plan.

    Smartone actually told her it was pretty useless so she moved to CSL on expiry of her contract.

    There's your answer


  3. #3

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Posts
    1,235

    Maybe on the cheap plan. I have the $4xx unlimited 4G plan and experience zero throttling anywhere.


  4. #4

    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Posts
    1,507

    mp3?


  5. #5

    Join Date
    May 2015
    Posts
    451

    I'm on the Smartone $78 unlimited "3G" plan and no problems streaming Spotify, Google music, or RTHK podcasts. When you say mp3 is a problem, do you mean other formats like flac or aac are ok?


  6. #6

    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    1,550
    Quote Originally Posted by flameproof:
    I noticed something strange lately:

    Since beginning of Feb I'm on the cheap uncapped SmarTone 720K LTE plan ($106/m). Basically that plan is fine.

    But when I d/l a MP3 it starts quick, and then get's slower, and eventually get stuck after 5Mb or so. On the 3G plan there was no such problem.

    My workaround is Shadowsocks VPN, that restarts a stalling connection automatically.

    Just wonder if anybody else has similar SmarTone problems?
    Its due to traffic shaping on low priority networks. Network providers use QoS to give priority to downloads of web pages and small files like mails over larger media files. When u click download it starts faster as the total file size is not instantly registered on the network . Once the network sees the file size and file type, it throttles.
    flameproof likes this.

  7. #7

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    6,180
    Quote Originally Posted by monomono:
    I'm on the Smartone $78 unlimited "3G" plan and no problems streaming Spotify, Google music, or RTHK podcasts. When you say mp3 is a problem, do you mean other formats like flac or aac are ok?
    Well, @shafiq's reply is plausible.

    What I try to d/l is an 8Mb audio MP3 file. I use also Tune-In radio and have no problem with the radio streams, and no problem with Youtube. Strangely, had no problem on 3G before too. Will try to switch back to G3, anyway, if in need now I switch on Shadowsocks and it works fine.