MTS has its own signature and it is easy to recognise: the connection does come up, the badge lights, and two or three seconds later traffic stops flowing. The app says so plainly: “Connected, but no traffic”. Below is what we measured in Moscow and why this is not a broken phone.
What it looks like, and how it differs from MegaFon
The difference between the two operators is substantial, and it tells you immediately where to look.
| Operator | Handshake | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| MTS | succeeds | traffic dies after 2–3 seconds |
| MegaFon | never happens | a minute of “Connecting…” |
So on MTS the filter lets the start of the conversation through and intervenes in the established flow, whereas MegaFon cuts earlier — it never reaches a connection. People call both of these “it does not work”, and they are two different phenomena.
Why “connected” and “no internet” happen at the same time
This is the most common source of confusion. The badge means “the tunnel is up”: keys were exchanged and a route was built. It does not mean “data is flowing through it”. The MTS case lives precisely between those two states: the handshake passed, the badge is lit, and the flow behind it is gone. The same symptom has other, much simpler causes — five reasons a connection comes up while traffic does not.
What the measurement showed
We first saw it on 27 July 2026: on MTS in Moscow the flow died roughly 2.5 seconds after a successful handshake, consistently, attempt after attempt. Neither the phone, nor the account, nor the chosen country changed it.
On 28 July the same phone on the same operator, running an updated app with first packet mimicry enabled, connected and kept working. Exactly one thing changed — the shape of the traffic.
⚠️ An honest caveat: we did not measure throughput in that run, so there are no MTS speed numbers here and we will not invent any. One thing was established — the connection stopped dying.
Changing the port is pointless
This was verified on MegaFon rather than MTS, but verified directly: a profile differing from the broken one only by port 443 did not work, while mimicry on an ordinary high port did. The advice “switch to 443”, which every search returns first, is not supported by a single measurement.
What to do when MTS drops after a couple of seconds
- Check whether it repeats. If the connection dies at roughly the same second every time, it is not radio and not chance.
- Compare with Wi-Fi. On a home network the same connection normally lives indefinitely — why a mobile network behaves differently.
- Let the app try its paths. Mayak does not get stuck on one route — how the ladder works.
- Confirm the connection is alive, not merely “connected”. Four checks in a minute.
Short version: on MTS what breaks is not the connection but the established flow. That is why reconnecting helps for a couple of seconds and changing the port does not help at all.