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Help Streaming media and the Tyrrany of the Sprint Proxies

EarlyMon said:
I confirmed on my Evo when this came out months back - it affected both my 3G and wifi speeds.

Why would they route everything through their proxies? Dunno - one size fits all coding? :confused:

So far, we have two reports that this significantly slows things down for some. Now - there's a mystery: how does shortening a path make it slower???

So - the tyranny of the Sprint servers is the fact that they route you through their proxies, this alleviates it. Rationale for the title in an earlier post. ;) :)
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Thanks for the clarification!!
 
cobalt said:
So this is totally fascinating to me; first I've heard of them setting you up on a proxy by default. Obviously, there's a lot of reasons they could be doing this; proxies can improve performance through caching, or obfuscate IPs like TOR to protect you from "bad guys", or the converse: be the bad guy and track everything you do. Obvious downside you can't get around would be anything not feasibly cacheable (like streaming media) would take a performance hit.

But any ideas why Sprint is doing it?

(Also: was winamp streaming maybe shoutcast? I associate the two, but don't remember for sure.)
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One possible answer: Sprint TV's streaming (live) TV no longer works with this tweak for me. Maybe their TV network is just down or something, but not a single LIVE station works with Sprint TV...
 
Very interesting. I decided to redo this mod and test my wifi/3G at work with a stopwatch and loading a page/clearing cache over and over to see if it really was slowing my 3G/wifi. Ever since I changed the proxy again, I've been connected to my wifi without issue. Unlike before where I couldn't keep a link. 3G may be slower, but screw it, I got wifi now. And wifi is working fine. :)

I also live in a strong 4G area. So, if I ever do need to browse on the go, I could probably kick on 4G anyways and let the phone chew it's own battery.

Edit: nvm, wifi is on the fritz again. Was working strong for an hour.
 
I've had two times where I've brought home a new component, everything working on the net except the new component - so, I've logically blamed that - only to go thru three or four days of troubleshooting the device before waking up to a dead router. Twice.

Just saying, troubleshooting wifi can be screwy. Best luck. ;)
 
Holy crap Batman. Why in earth names would sprint have the phones configure to send things through a potentially distant proxy. The latency must be awful.

Btw the one case where this will help is if you are near the proxy; far from the origin AND the proxy has the data cached.
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Sadly neither of those domains resolve on a public network and I'm too lazy to try changing my name server to use a sprint name server. If someone has a sprint name server (or a resolving tool on the phone please resolve those cnames). It would be curious if they resolve to a CDN; a cluster or a single data center (single data center would almost guarantee adverse benefits).
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Hum. I wonder if this is intentional and intended to reduce peering costs.
Btw does the list of MLS variables also list the name server the phone is using ?


EarlyMon said:
So - for those new to this issue:

Streaming media involving RTSP (real-time streaming protocol) or fast timing thru HTTP are impacted by the fact that these phones come configured to send ALL traffic through proxies for each.

Services affected are Sirius/XM, winamp streaming (sorry, forgot the name), Pandora (depending on user/version) and many others.

Your existing settings are:


  • RTSP proxy IP = rtsp.vog.sprintpcs.com
  • RTSP proxy port = 554
  • HTTP proxy IP = pd.vog.sprintpcs.com
  • HTTP proxy port = 8085
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you2 said:
Sadly neither of those domains resolve on a public network and I'm too lazy to try changing my name server to use a sprint name server. If someone has a sprint name server (or a resolving tool on the phone please resolve those cnames). It would be curious if they resolve to a CDN; a cluster or a single data center (single data center would almost guarantee adverse benefits).
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Figured I'd try this just for kicks, using a "ping & dns" android app. I'm currently using the proxy BTW; haven't tried to get my MSL yet.

Result:
--------------------
rtsp.vog.sprintpcs.com.
TTL=3600
A 68.28.31.20

(DNS server: 68.28.242.91)
-------------------

Doesn't tell me a whole lot. And that dns server didn't seem to accept my request when attempted from my computer (i.e. not from my phone). Internic doesn't know about the proxy IP, either, so it may be totally private. (Edit: In hindsight, given what you said, I guess that was obvious.)

I also tried traceroute: it takes three hops to get to that proxy server from my phone (two servers/switches between my phone and that proxy server.
 
you2 - I'll try to remember to check it later on rooted Evo to see if I can come up with the CDN.

Meanwhile, you want more outrage - check this out: My Account

No dice on the DNS server that I could see - they are using DSA server (not surprising for telephony, I suppose) and a DSS proxy.


EDITin light of cobalt's post -

68.28.177.76 is listed as the Second Home Agent (Primary is 255.255.255.255) - makes sense that's their DNS? Or is that other?
 
What woudl be more interesting is the latency (rather than number of hops). Given the private network aspect it could very well be that one of the hops is very long. If you travel a bit you might also check the latency at other locations to see if they are remapping you to a close server or if you tend to get pinned to the same data center regardless of your location.
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Cross country latency tends to be 80ms (with upper corner to far lower corner touching 100ms). Naturally a few hundred miles shoudl have marginal impact on latency unless they shift you to a different data center.
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For kicks you could try faking out their servers by changing your location. Btw are these proxies used for wifi? I would think that would be more difficult if their name server reject requests from public internet.

cobalt said:
Figured I'd try this just for kicks, using a "ping & dns" android app. I'm currently using the proxy BTW; haven't tried to get my MSL yet.

Result:
--------------------
rtsp.vog.sprintpcs.com.
TTL=3600
A 68.28.31.20

(DNS server: 68.28.242.91)
-------------------

Doesn't tell me a whole lot. And that dns server didn't seem to accept my request when attempted from my computer (i.e. not from my phone). Internic doesn't know about the proxy IP, either, so it may be totally private. (Edit: In hindsight, given what you said, I guess that was obvious.)

I also tried traceroute: it takes three hops to get to that proxy server from my phone (two servers/switches between my phone and that proxy server.
Click to expand...
 
Called Sprint and got my MSL easy.
Tried these changes and got a modest increase in speed using Speakeasy speed test.
Nothing earth shaking in WiFi, and home 3G signal is weak anyway so no big deal.
No Sprint TV with these new settings so it must require their proxy settings. Was only able to see a Spongebob preview, but no sports or weather. After going back, weather worked, but slow due to weak signal.
Overall, wasn't worth it for me.
 
you2 said:
For kicks you could try faking out their servers by changing your location. Btw are these proxies used for wifi? I would think that would be more difficult if their name server reject requests from public internet.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you missed my link in my reply this morning where the devs were trying to work out what to do because localhost references were even being routed through the proxy?
 
No I saw it but that is slightly different (i think). If you are on 3g or 4g (even if the request is localhost) it should still be able to reach the proxy (you might not like it and it might not work very well but it should still be reachable :) )
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If you are on wifi than you are going through your home or local network; unless there is a wifi proxy that puts you back onto the sprint network (basically vpn) in which case then you could reach their http/streaming proxy but that would make wifi suck at times even if your local/corporate network is fast.

Does what I said make sense ?


EarlyMon said:
I'm guessing you missed my link in my reply this morning where the devs were trying to work out what to do because localhost references were even being routed through the proxy?
Click to expand...
 
you2 said:
What woudl be more interesting is the latency (rather than number of hops). Given the private network aspect it could very well be that one of the hops is very long. If you travel a bit you might also check the latency at other locations to see if they are remapping you to a close server or if you tend to get pinned to the same data center regardless of your location.
Click to expand...

The traceroute wasn't giving me latency per connection, so it was almost useless except telling me the number of hops. I tried pinging each hop individually, but it was at best inconclusive and at worst backwards; it was reporting 90-150ms no matter which server in the path I tried, and the servers that should been "closer" were reporting *higher* pings than the ones that came later. (Wait, there's no way pings are going through the proxy, are they??)

Well, maybe I can check the IP address next time I'm out of town, or if others report IPs that the proxy resolves to, compare against this one. And I should probably get my MSL and try more experiments.
 
you2 said:
No I saw it but that is slightly different (i think). If you are on 3g or 4g (even if the request is localhost) it should still be able to reach the proxy (you might not like it and it might not work very well but it should still be reachable :) )
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If you are on wifi than you are going through your home or local network; unless there is a wifi proxy that puts you back onto the sprint network (basically vpn) in which case then you could reach their http/streaming proxy but that would make wifi suck at times even if your local/corporate network is fast.

Does what I said make sense ?
Click to expand...

Yep - and I recall checking that on my Evo and concluding that the wifi went through the proxy as well, but I don't recall what steps I took - that was a while back.
 
nykbob said:
Called Sprint and got my MSL easy.
Tried these changes and got a modest increase in speed using Speakeasy speed test.
Nothing earth shaking in WiFi, and home 3G signal is weak anyway so no big deal.
No Sprint TV with these new settings so it must require their proxy settings. Was only able to see a Spongebob preview, but no sports or weather. After going back, weather worked, but slow due to weak signal.
Overall, wasn't worth it for me.
Click to expand...

I made the change this morning...and was able to pull up and stream Sprint TV. Was watching ESPN.
 
it would make sense as to why you must be on 3G/4G in order to view the sprint tv stuff.. you have to go thru their proxy. when on wifi, as you2 posted, you do not go thru their proxy.

wow this thread really has explained some things for me--even things beyond the scope of this thread..

its some smart lil' cusses on this forum! :D
 
Yep, must be something I've overlooked previously.

Sprint TV has never worked via wifi, proxy or no. Without it in 3G, on-demand is no issue. I'm still wondering about my other observables, stated earlier, on wifi/Sprint TV response. I'm far, far from perfect but I do try to be meticulous with these sort of things. :confused:
 
EarlyMon said:
Yep, must be something I've overlooked previously.

Sprint TV has never worked via wifi, proxy or no. Without it in 3G, on-demand is no issue. I'm still wondering about my other observables, stated earlier, on wifi/Sprint TV response. I'm far, far from perfect but I do try to be meticulous with these sort of things. :confused:
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I didn't have trouble with ondemand, either. Only the LIVE rstp/http streaming (sure enough, that's what the proxy is for). And even then, only those channels I didn't have somewhat DNS "cached" would fail. Then eventually all of them did (I'm guessing the DNS/nameserver refresh and clearing of any caches).
 
right, the live streaming channels are what im talking about. if the proxy server in the MSL list needs to be there, this would explain (to me at least) why sprint tv live streams will not work. yes i know that sprint tv has always only used cellular.. isn't nascar the same way?

im pickin' up what you're layin' down EM, perhaps my post confused a bit...
 
I had never used Sprint TV on the phone...I made the proxy change this morning. Then I went to lunch and watched ESPN MobileTV from the Live TV tab. I just did it again to be sure...watching Wimbeldon. I'll double check my proxy settings to make sure they took.

Edit: Sure enough...the proxy settings didn't stick for some reason but the vocoder settings did. Oh well, made the change again. I don't use Sprint TV anyway :D
 
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