[e2e] Is a non-TCP solution dead?

[davide+e2e at cs.cmu.edu]

> However, if you want to discuss the space of potential RF
> communications networks, you have to stop thinking about
> "links".   Start with the Slepian-Wolf theorem [...]
> Wireless means there are "no wires".  Not even "virtual
> wires".

But there *are* "associations", aren't there?  If nothing else, a
transmitter needs to have reasonable confidence that at least one
receiver will be listening with a "close enough" tuple of (frequency
range, modulation method, clock rate, antenna orientation), right?

Don't practical system designs involve medium-sized association
sets per wireless node, i.e., not zero, one, or one million?  If
at any given time there are 17 stations with which you are reasonably
synchronized and 17,000,000 with which you aren't, is that conceptually
so far away from 17 links?  Don't CPU requirements practically
limit you to a medium-sized number of simultaneously synchronized
partners?

Or, put another way, if one end-system sends 20 related packets
"in close succession" to another end-system 5 miles away, isn't it
pretty likely that most of those 20 packets will traverse the same
sequence of nodes?  Do we have any experience with architectures
where each of the 20 packets traverses a *different* sequence of
nodes?  Would there be much hope of the transmitting end-system
pacing packets along those 20 independent paths in a reasonable
way?

Dave Eckhardt