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Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

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Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#91
post #77
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need help understanding why this is being down voted.

As you asked.. firstly because doesn't speak to the actual idea being put forward, merely implying that they are—at best—incompetent and at worst hypocritical. It then compounds this faux pas with a tender for work which seems a little galling.

A cursory look shows that this is not an implication but a statement of fact:

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/151027_FV_1ATV/1/details/

I didn't get the idea that grk was pitching consulting services but just to be clear that I have no interest in that market, here are the most obvious things:

1. Enable gzip transfer compression for static assets like Bootstrap

2. Compress the large images more aggressively and perhaps turn on progressive JPEG, although that latter step might be CPU-costly on mobile devices

3. Set cache headers on all static resources so regular users and anyone behind a caching proxy will avoid the full server RTT

4. If you use www.hike.in, optimize the redirect to go directly to get.hike.in instead of having a full RTT to get the intermediate hike.in redirect.

Beyond that, I'd look into a front-end diet – do you need so many images, can you lazy-load images or that 350KB of youtube, etc?

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Mac OS and iOS have the Network Link Conditioner, which can do the same thing (from a network perspective) at the system level: http://nshipster.com/network-link-conditioner/

And Windows, of course, has Fiddler: http://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler

And for completeness, Linux has tc [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tc_(Linux)

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#93

Do Facebookers never venture outside of cities? Because maybe the UK is weird, but getting 2G even in developed areas isn't that uncommon for me. Sure there's 4G in cities and 3G in many places, but there's plenty of places with poor signal or outdated transmitters (like the town I live in). (This is especially noticeable if you're in a train or a bus where you're frequently changing cells.)

This comment thread makes me feel spoiled - I used to live in Sweden where my operator (Three) didn't have a 2G network, now I live in Japan where all the 2G networks are long-gone. Right now I'm visiting Australia where by far the best coverage is on Telstra's NextG 3G network (I'm 80 km away from the nearest supermarket yet am getting 6 MBit down on NextG with an antenna on the roof). I haven't seen 2G in a LONG ti…

New Zealand is similar, one carrier is 3G/4G only, one of them is 2G/3G/4G, and the newest one only operates their own network in major cities on 2G/3G/4G and roams onto the second largest outside of it. I frequently get 3G in very rural areas and I haven't been in a 2G only area for months.

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#94

Do Facebookers never venture outside of cities? Because maybe the UK is weird, but getting 2G even in developed areas isn't that uncommon for me. Sure there's 4G in cities and 3G in many places, but there's plenty of places with poor signal or outdated transmitters (like the town I live in). (This is especially noticeable if you're in a train or a bus where you're frequently changing cells.)

It's really bad for satnav apps. If you try to plan a route in Waze with a 2G connection, the app will give a timeout error and become unusable.

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#95

Do Facebookers never venture outside of cities? Because maybe the UK is weird, but getting 2G even in developed areas isn't that uncommon for me. Sure there's 4G in cities and 3G in many places, but there's plenty of places with poor signal or outdated transmitters (like the town I live in). (This is especially noticeable if you're in a train or a bus where you're frequently changing cells.)

This comment thread makes me feel spoiled - I used to live in Sweden where my operator (Three) didn't have a 2G network, now I live in Japan where all the 2G networks are long-gone. Right now I'm visiting Australia where by far the best coverage is on Telstra's NextG 3G network (I'm 80 km away from the nearest supermarket yet am getting 6 MBit down on NextG with an antenna on the roof). I haven't seen 2G in a LONG ti…

Minor point but I'm fairly certain Telstra NextG is a 4G network.

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#96
post #77
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need help understanding why this is being down voted.

As you asked.. firstly because doesn't speak to the actual idea being put forward, merely implying that they are—at best—incompetent and at worst hypocritical. It then compounds this faux pas with a tender for work which seems a little galling.

"I could walk you through" seems to me to be an offer to help, not a pitch for business.

It struck me as basically somebody saying "if you care about it for your app, I'd be happy to help you care about it for your website".

I feel like you're assuming bad faith, and the person confused as to why the comment was being downvoted was applying the principle of charity instead.

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#98

Do Facebookers never venture outside of cities? Because maybe the UK is weird, but getting 2G even in developed areas isn't that uncommon for me. Sure there's 4G in cities and 3G in many places, but there's plenty of places with poor signal or outdated transmitters (like the town I live in). (This is especially noticeable if you're in a train or a bus where you're frequently changing cells.)

In Vietnam, there are more and more buses have 3G router w/ AP to supply internet to their customers on road trips. Even the remote mountains now have stable 3G network.

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment thread makes me feel spoiled - I used to live in Sweden where my operator (Three) didn't have a 2G network, now I live in Japan where all the 2G networks are long-gone. Right now I'm visiting Australia where by far the best coverage is on Telstra's NextG 3G network (I'm 80 km away from the nearest supermarket yet am getting 6 MBit down on NextG with an antenna on the roof). I haven't seen 2G in a LONG ti…

Minor point but I'm fairly certain Telstra NextG is a 4G network.

NextG is their 850 MHz 3G HSDPA network. Their 4G network is just branded "Telstra 4G" and "Telstra 4GX" for 700 MHz.

Re: Facebook '2G Tuesdays' to better understand markets like India

#100
post #34

Is everyone at FB so young that they don't remember 2G in America?

Depending on the source, the average age of their employees is between 25-28 years old. That's young enough to realistically expect that they've never owned a smartphone without 3G.

I don't think age matters that much. Smartphones didn't really take off until 3G was pretty common. I'd wager the vast majority of smartphone users of any age in the US got a 3G-capable phone as their first smartphone. Speaking personally, I'm 35 and my first smartphone was an iPhone 3GS.
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