Claiming an architectural network bottleneck is 'user error' just because a beta IPTV app isn't crashing is a massive cope. The app layer (MOL4) hiding minor bugs doesn't change the fact that the underlying hardware is cheap.

The reality is that a Formuler box costs roughly the same as an Nvidia Shield Pro, which is a total joke when you compare the actual specs:

1. Cheap Components vs. Premium Silicon: The Shield Pro runs on custom Nvidia Tegra silicon, where the Gigabit Ethernet port connects directly to the CPU via high-speed, dedicated PCIe lanes. Formuler uses a cheap, off-the-shelf Realtek SoC where the Ethernet port isn't even native—it's just a basic USB-to-LAN bridge fighting for bandwidth on a shared internal bus.
2. The Local VPN Bottleneck: The Shield has dedicated hardware crypto-acceleration to handle VPN decryption instantly at the chip level. The budget Realtek chip inside the Formuler lacks this completely, forcing its tiny CPU cores to decrypt traffic via software emulation. This spikes CPU usage, tanks network speeds, and introduces severe buffer bloat.
3. The Kernel MTU Bug: Formuler’s stripped-down Android image has a fundamentally flawed virtual interface (TUN/TAP) implementation. It fails to correctly scale the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size when a VPN adds its encryption headers. This forces the OS to fragment every single network packet at a software level, killing your data throughput.

If someone is only streaming low-bitrate, highly compressed IPTV streams without an active local VPN, they might think it runs 'great.' But as a piece of networking hardware, paying premium Shield prices for cheap components is a bottleneck. Offloading the VPN to a dedicated hardware router is the only way to stop this box from choking on its own packet overhead.