[e2e] Bandwidth Estimation

[J. Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Michael B Greenwald <mbgreen at dsl.cis.upenn.edu>

    > Having two separate terms for bandwidth and bandwidth will .. only
    > remind people that there are two distinct meanings.

True - but some people *really* need that help - especially the people who
don't even understand that there *are* two separate concepts - which, per
Dave's report, are thick on the ground in legal-land.

    > people (including myself, mea culpa) who are occasionally guilty of
    > sloppy speech (i.e. using the term "bandwidth" in a context where the
    > listener/reader cannot disambiguate between the two meanings)

I also plead guilty (as I expect most here do - except maybe Alex :-). But I
think the sin is more fundamental - we should never have started using it in
the second way at all. Anyway, too late now...

    > Two distinct terms would force speakers/writers to be more precise in
    > their speech (but it will not help people who are imprecise in their
    > thinking).
    > ...
    > I don't view the overloading of "bandwidth" as an indictment of
    > computer scientists or network engineers as being guilty of sloppy
    > thinking, and two distinct terms may not help as much as you hope.
    > In other words, I don't think the world .. is so bad now, and I don't
    > think the world will be *that much* better if we change

I disagree.

As an example, it may be that when *I* use the term "address", I'm not
confused in my thinking, but I can guarantee that *some* of the people in the
IETF who use this term *are* confused - although I do think that the number
has declined very considerably over the years, and the situation is now quite
good. But this is of course many years after a concerted effort to make
people think separately about location and identity got started...

So I think separate words will help, and I think we should make a concerted,
long-term effort to straighten this out.

	Noel