In some cases, application-level measurements can be the only way for an application to get an understanding about the performance offered by the underlying network(s). It can also be that an application-level measurement is the only practical solution to verify the availability of a particular service. Hence, as more and more applications perform measurements of various networks; be that fixed or mobile, it is crucial to understand the context in which the application level measurements operate their capabilities and limitations. To this end in this paper we discuss some of the fundamentals of computer network performance measurements and in particular the key aspects to consider when using application level measurements to estimate network performance properties.