Re: Comments about Network Information API

On 03/20/2012 11:24 AM, Cheng, Diana, Vodafone Group wrote:
> The new changes in the Connection Interface require a measure of the
> currently available bandwidth in terms of MB/s, which can vary very very
> quickly (for example  as ones moves from outdoors to indoors with a
> mobile device: e.g. dropping from HSPA+ to GPRS). Since it can change so
> quickly, the bandwidth should be tested frequently enough in order to
> trigger the 'change' event whenever a significant change occurs. But
> testing for bandwidth requires to do some sort of "download" trying to
> get the "full bandwidth" during the test and that might generate a lot
> of traffic. As a user who pays for data I'm not sure I would be happy
> knowing that the browser is downloading data in the background just to
> constantly test for bandwidth. This also has the potential for draining
> battery, which is already a problem with many devices like Smartphones.

I understand there are some issues with the current specification but I
still believe that it's first of all better than the previous one (which
was exposing a type attribute) and most raised problems should be
handled by implementations. For example, if you switch from a data
connection to another, the UA could fire a change event and set the
bandwidth to an arbitrary value, then improve this value. The same way,
to prevent battery draining, the UA could prevent sending events if the
bandwidth didn't change significantly enough.

--
Mounir

Received on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:35:00 UTC