With signal each registered device will receive a copy of the chat while that device is registered. If a new device is enabled afaik it doesn't get sent any messages from the past, although technically the other devices could transmit previous messages.
As far as I can tell, the compression is separate for the headers, does not use deflate, and (most importantly) is over the entire session, not just one request.
This would benefit from the fact that in one request headers are not repeated, but over multiple requests they certainly are.
Its not about speeding it up, its about finding a fair test, this would create a worst case delivery scenario which you know someone hasn't messed with.
If you can optimise your applications under those conditions you know its going to be gravy for those without lots of hops. The problem is that developers have very fast computers AND are usually a very short hop count from their deployment servers. They make really bad testers.
