This disclosure relates to techniques for a wireless device to detect network bandwidth throttling and dynamically select a buffer threshold. The wireless device may establish a wireless link. Data for a downlink stream may be requested when an amount of buffered data for the stream is below a lower buffer threshold, received via the wireless link, and buffered. Data requests for the stream may be stopped when the amount of buffered data for the stream is above an upper buffer threshold. The upper buffer threshold may be selected based on characteristics of the wireless link and the stream. Throughput of the wireless link may also be monitored during multiple time windows, and the wireless device may determine whether the wireless link caps bandwidth below a bandwidth threshold based on the throughput monitoring.