High Performance Browser Networking

Chapter 8. Optimizing for Mobile Networks

First off, minimizing latency through keepalive connections, geo-positioning your servers and data closer to the client, optimizing your TLS deployments, and all the other protocol optimizations we have covered are only more important on mobile applications, where both latency and throughput are always at a premium. Similarly, all the web application performance best practices are equally applicable. Feel free to flip ahead to Chapter 10; we’ll wait.

However, mobile networks also pose some new and unique requirements for our performance strategy. Designing applications for the mobile web requires careful planning and consideration of the presentation of the content within the constraints of the form factor of the device, the unique performance properties of the radio interface, and the impact on the battery life. The three are inextricably linked.

Perhaps because it is the easiest to control, the presentation layer, with topics such as responsive design, tends to receive the most attention. However, where most applications fall short, it is often due to the incorrect design assumptions about networking performance: the application protocols are the same, but the differences in the physical delivery layers impose a number of constraints that, if unaccounted for, will lead to slow response times, high latency variability, and ultimately a compromised experience for the user. To add insult to injury, poor networking decisions will also have ...