This read-create PmProfileType object specifies which statistics profile a PM instance collects, per its description, effectively selecting which specific set of counters, out of potentially several available profiles for a given interface type, this particular instance tracks. Because a single interface can have multiple PM instances each covering a different profile, this field is what distinguishes, say, a basic-counters instance from an extended-error-counters instance on the same port. An engineer needing detailed extended TxRx history, as seen later in this table, rather than basic counts would specifically select the profile type that maps to that extended history table when creating the instance.