[LINK] Worrying about the Dark Ages (was Re: ANAO report: Government Agencies' Management of their Websites)

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 01:11:43PM +1100, Stilgherrian wrote:
> On 19/12/2008, at 12:43 PM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> > Unfortunately ANAO offer the PDF document on their web site before
> > the HTML summary, so many people will end up with 1.7 Mbytes of PDF
> > download, when they most likely would be happier with 40 Kbytes of  
> > web page.
> 
> Worrying that someone can't download 1.7MB of data in 2008 -- a mere 2  
> seconds at ADSL2+ speeds, and even only 10 seconds on the Next G  
> network card in my laptop, for an entire government report -- is like  
> worrying that ABC2 TV programs can't be received by telegram. There  
> comes a point where we just have to stop worrying about people who  
> have steam-driven gearwheel computers or live in a cave. Discuss.

it's still worth worrying about.

lots of people in Australia are on 2 or 5GB download quotas (or
even worse if they've been suckered by the cheap-sounding $19.95 or
$29.95/month ADSL deals with 500MB or less quota). it really doesn't
take a lot of usage to exceed that quota...at which point you either get
speed limited to 64 or 128Kbps, or you start paying through the nose for
each MB.

and people on mobile data plans in australia pay absurdly large amounts
of money for ridiculously small download quotas.....and they can end
up with large bills even if they have a reasonable dl quota from a
non-telstra supplier because they didn't realise their mobile was
Roaming at the moment they downloaded something.


even without that, why waste bandwidth? and why make your site slower
than it needs to be?  

there are two main aspects to this:

1. server/network workload:

every byte transmitted by your server takes work (from your server, your
router, your ISP's router, and every other router between your server
and the user). 

the more your server has to send for each request, the less simultaneous
requests it can send. i.e. if a server that averages 100KB/"page" maxes
out at 100 simultaneous requests, can only do about 6 simultanoues
requests at 1.7MB/"page".

(actually, it won't scale linearly like that at all. it's just made up
numbers, AKA "statistics" :), to illustrate the point that more work for
each request means less requests served in a given time)


also remember that transmitting data results in, on average, about
10-15% of incoming data (ACK packets, protocol overhead, various ICMP
messages, retransmission requests, etc). i.e. sending 1MB will cause you
to receive about 100-150KB.  receiving that is also more work for your
server and all the routers in tha path.


2. the "user experience" 

10 seconds can be a subjectively long time to wait, especially if it's
10 seconds for every "page" that you view because the web designers have
your "i don't care about efficiency or optimising for size" atttitude.
10 seconds for 1.7MB would be only be a fraction of a second for 40KB.


> Disclosure: The Next G card is provided to me free by Telstra Country  
> Wide. It doesn't stop me saying things like the screenshot at http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/blogs/the-scrum/to-be-liked-or-not-to-be-liked-that-is-the-question 
>   which is also http://is.gd/c6Jo ... ;)

yes, well, most people with mobile data plans actually pay for bandwidth
used. with their own money.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty.
		-- Thomas Jefferson