behafteter is the "comparative" form of behaftet
behaftet
behafteter
am behaftetsten
now this comparative form is inflected to match the feminine gender.
you just change the stem to our comparative form and the result is:
behafteteren
a fitting translation would maybe be:
more afflicted
in combination with Verlust this becomes:
afflicted wit losses --> lossy
more afflicted with losses --> lossier
this makes the whole sentence translate to:
If possible, we prefer direct communication and avoid the considerably
lossier and more laborious means of indirect communication