Systems and methods for mobile network congestion recognition for optimization of mobile traffic are disclosed. A mobile device having a local proxy equipped with congestion recognition capabilities can sample time consumed to establish data connection between the mobile device and the mobile network, collect data including at least one of signal strength data, cell identifier, and location area code associated with the data connection between the mobile device and the mobile network, and anticipate network congestion, based at least on the time consumed and the collected data. On detecting mobile network congestion, the local proxy can apply a blocking policy to block all or low priority traffic from signaling the congested mobile network to ease the congestion.