[freenet-dev] Typical packet loss

[Chris Carlin]

Matthew Toseland wrote:
> What's the typical packet loss on a wired internet connection? I've
> hardly ever seen packet loss here, certainly no more than 2%.
> 
> On a good wireless connection? (20dB etc)?
> 
> On a not so good wireless connection?

For what it's worth, when playing with UDP protocols over residential 
southern US ISPs I've seen end-to-end packet loss start at less than 
five percent but then increase rapidly to 90% once a seemingly arbitrary 
  number of packets per second is reached. This happened without 
saturation of the point-to-point bandwidth and was not connected to size 
of the packets.

Also, it wasn't a crazy test of UDP's limits; it was actually an 
experiment to see why the AIMD in a real-world data transmission 
algorithm was flapping. Turns out the 70-90% packet loss would follow 
the transmit rate down until it reached another seemingly arbitrary 
point (without regard to rate of decrease) where the loss would return 
to normal.

I did these experiments a year or two ago through a few separate pairs 
of endpoints, so local malfunctioning equipment can probably be ruled out.

~Chris