[e2e] Stupid Question: Why are missing ACKs not considered as indicator for congestion?

[Armando L. Caro, Jr.]

Fred Baker wrote:
> and in any event, I can think of many networks in which loss is an
> indicator of nothing more than loss. Just say "radio"...

That might not always be true. For simplicity, let's assume a single
wireless link in the end-to-end path. If that link does L2
retransmissions, loss on the radio channel will build up a queue at L2.
Now if the endpoints are seeing loss at L4, then that means the loss was
so bad that multiple L2 retransmissions were unsuccessful... which
implies a larger queue. Thus, the sender should back off, just as it
would if it experienced a loss on a wired network.

-- 
Armando