Mobinil, 3G and Image Compression
I just noticed today while I'm using Mobinil 3G connection that all the images on any website I visit were of a bad quality. Not only that, but GIF images were severely dithered. Even websites that I made myself. I decided to find out why. A conspiracy theory quickly ran through my head: Could it be that Mobibil are compressing images before they arrive to me? I ran a few tests and the results confirmed this theory. The test was to download the same image twice, once through Mobinil connection and once through normal ADSL connection. The original image is at : http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/35173.jpg
Here is Mobinil downloaded image:
And the ADSL downloaded image:
The simplest analysis shows that Mobinil image was 45K in size while the ADSL one was 504K. Even though this does not mean 90% compression the quality loss is visibly clear.
A more thorough look at the files proves that the image went through further processing before it arrived to my computer, here is a side by side comparison of EXIF data from both images:
To the left is Mobinil image, to the right is ADSL image.
What makes them do this? I can only think of two reasons: Save 3G bandwidth or give users the illusion of speed.
Why should I care? This is deceptive. I should get what I'm paying for. No one informed me that they will use image caching/compression before delivering web content. And imagine receiving an email with images to work with or downloading an image from a photo-bank for your graphics design work. It will be of a much lower quality.
Even though the results I came to are quite confirmed, I cannot confirm that this is a procedure they've applied before or will apply in the future permanently, and I could not test at this point using different variables (different USB modem or different PC). Maybe others can test the theory and find out what's going on?
Here is Mobinil downloaded image:
And the ADSL downloaded image:
The simplest analysis shows that Mobinil image was 45K in size while the ADSL one was 504K. Even though this does not mean 90% compression the quality loss is visibly clear.
A more thorough look at the files proves that the image went through further processing before it arrived to my computer, here is a side by side comparison of EXIF data from both images:
 |  |
What makes them do this? I can only think of two reasons: Save 3G bandwidth or give users the illusion of speed.
Why should I care? This is deceptive. I should get what I'm paying for. No one informed me that they will use image caching/compression before delivering web content. And imagine receiving an email with images to work with or downloading an image from a photo-bank for your graphics design work. It will be of a much lower quality.
Even though the results I came to are quite confirmed, I cannot confirm that this is a procedure they've applied before or will apply in the future permanently, and I could not test at this point using different variables (different USB modem or different PC). Maybe others can test the theory and find out what's going on?
3 هو عدد اللي عبروني:
They don't only compress JPG images, they strip the EXIF data. I wonder if this happens when you upload images as well?
Which will be really lame for uploading photographs to photo sites like Flickr.
In theory, this shouldn't happen with https. Did you try downloading images from your mail account while you are connected via https?
I dont think it applies to uploading. This will require something on my end to compress and send the file. This wouldnt be a concern anyway for them as upstream is an internet bandwidth not 3G.
I agree that https will bypass this. I didnt try it though.
I remember I had the same experience with Vodafone Egypt as well. I always wondered why images look so poor quality.
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