Yeap. Trains going through rural areas, particularly with rolling hills can experience vast patches of no signal.
Even with flat land and line of sight to a base station, the signal is going to drop off with distance^-4, which is a lot quicker than in urban environments where it is distance^(-1.6 to -4). Finally base stations are fewer and further between in rural areas, so often you will be nearer the edges of the cell radius and experience worse signal and more cochannel interference!
But saying all that I do like the sentiment of the article and it is definitely good advice to design mobile apps for flakey connections...
Thats a good find. However "strictly necessary" is pretty vague. Tracking your own users on your site to optimise it for them would potentially be out of the question. Though if you sign up you could implicitly allow it with terms and conditions.
Even with flat land and line of sight to a base station, the signal is going to drop off with distance^-4, which is a lot quicker than in urban environments where it is distance^(-1.6 to -4). Finally base stations are fewer and further between in rural areas, so often you will be nearer the edges of the cell radius and experience worse signal and more cochannel interference!
But saying all that I do like the sentiment of the article and it is definitely good advice to design mobile apps for flakey connections...