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> and a complete 15-second connectivity dropout every few minutes?

> I can’t seem to emulate the connection dropout, but the 10% packet loss should be harsh enough. ... Still, it’s Bad Enough.)

The total dropout is surprisingly bad, probably because it kills a lot of "are we alive?" checks... then when things come back, they all hammer the crappy link and everything just dies in a way that all too often doesn't recover.

Seriously, more developers need to eat their own dogfood on the subway, or in the back of a grocery store that's surprisingly well RF-shielded, or in a modern steel-reinforced-concrete building but without WiFi (so you're on cellular data which can't quite make it through the building skin), or....

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bigfatkitten 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Or on Inmarsat BGAN, where data costs $6/MB (yes, six dollars per megabyte).

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immibis 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The design considerations for systems used on a $6/MB network, where you don't want to transmit anything unless you really have to, will be different from the ones on a patchy cellular network, where you want to keep sending packets to see if you're online yet. It's impossible to make an app that works well on both types of networks without knowing which one it's on - unless it's a fully offline app.

	▲	bigfatkitten 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Applications designed to work well over satellite or narrowband radio networks (which are inherently patchy) work just as well on cellular networks. It's an extremely common requirement for public safety applications, such as blue force tracking and PTT voice for the application to be able to use either depending on what's available at that moment.