nanog mailing list archives

Re: BGAN Optimized Laptops


From: Matthew Petach <mpetach () netflight com>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 19:54:50 -0700

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Scott Weeks <surfer () mauigateway com> wrote:

...

Someone told me that there is a way for the browser to say
to the web server, send me only the parts of the web page I
request.  For example, send me everything but the flash and
images.  Being a browser wuss I thought the web server just
sent everything and the browser decided whether to display
it or not.  That would mean the data already was transferred
over the expensive sat link incurring the data costs.

scott

Just wanted to clear one point up...

The web is *not* a "push" model; it's a "pull" model.

The HTML document is nothing but a text document
which has references to other elements that are
available to the browser, should it choose to
request them; but it is incumbent upon the
browser to request each and every one of
those other elements from the server before
they are transferred.  The server will not send
something that was not first requested by the
browser.

It's misunderstandings like this that make content
providers twitch every time an eyeball network
says "well you're *sending* all this data at my
network" -- absolutely nothing is being sent
that was not explicitly requested by the browser
first.   ^_^;

Thanks!

Matt


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