Re: [802SEC] Emergency services PAR
Dear Vivek and 802.21 members
I agree that the scope of the PAR appears to be very broad. Some of the
issues are:
1) Determining what is required for complaince with all regulatory
requirements for emergency services in all regulatory regions would be a
daunting project in itself.
2) The project would need to define the mechanisms to support
compliance for every 802 MAC/PHY combination, which would be a
challenging task.
For 1) the best answer may be to explicitly limit the scope to a few
specific regulatory documents.
Since the project does not define a new MAC/PHY, it would seem to be
describing LLC functionality.
My suggestion in the 802.11 meeting for reviewing PARs was that the PAR
should define the services and interfaces that at MAC/PHY needs to
provide in order to support emergency services. These would be
expressed in terms of MACs/PHYs (e.g., throughput, data rate, latency,
etc.) with control methods (e.g., MAC SAP or MLME SAP). Then you would
need to define interface requirements at the LLC to Layer 3 interface so
that the higher layers could enable emergency services when required.
However, that description reads like a PAR scope for 802.1, not 802.21.
I think supporting emergency services over our networking protocols is a
good idea. However, the first step may be to define the architecture,
as Tony suggests.
Regardless of the group that proposes this PAR, I think that the EC
should consider which group is the best home for this work based on the
scope.
Thanks
James Gilb
802 EC Recording Secretary
Tony Jeffree wrote:
> Vivek -
>
> I have significant problems with this draft PAR, some of which cannot be fixed simply by
> changing the wording of the draft.
>
> Firstly, the PAR reads like a charter for the working group to boil the ocean. The problem
> that the PAR offers to solve is large, multi-faceted, complex, and will inevitably involve
> expertise across the breadth of 802 technologies, as well as expertise in the political
> and regulatory issues surrounding this area, and the ways in which they interact with the
> technical solutions. A PAR is a charter to write a single standard; given the scope of the
> problem, I don't believe that the solution is going to consist of a single document;
> neither do I believe that the set of documents that would eventually be needed will be
> possible to write within a single working group. So, in short, the scope of the project is
> way too broad, and is consequently unlikely to be achievable in any realistic timeframe. A
> starting point that might have some chance of success would be to develop an architecture
> for emergency services support across 802; a competently written architecture can (and
> should) inform the set of documents that are needed in order to address the technology
> issues, and how they relate to each other. However, that is not what this draft PAR
> proposes.
>
> Secondly, the subject matter of the PAR has no relationship to the current charter of the
> 802.21 WG. Simply changing the 802.21 charter to make it "fit" is not, in my view, the
> correct solution here; past experience during the development of the existing 802.21
> standard gives me no confidence either in 802.21's will to develop truly cross-802
> standards or its ability to do so. I believe that the answer to 802.1's charter issues is
> simple; if you are done doing work on the subject matter of your original standard, then
> it is time you did the right thing and closed down the WG, rather than starting unrelated
> work. If there are further topic areas that your members desire to work on, and that are
> not a good fit with your current charter, then the right thing to do is to create one or
> more EC study groups to look at those topics and determine, on an 802-wide basis, how they
> should be tackled. That way, we stand a better chance of getting participation in the
> process by interested parties across 802, and less chance of the activity becoming either
> wireline or wireless centric. Once each EC study group has done its job, the EC will get
> to determine where any work that is proposed should best be done, and whether there is a
> need to create a new WG to tackle it.
>
> So, I will oppose the approval of this PAR on Friday. I will also oppose any change to
> 802.21's charter beyond the subject matter of its existing standard and approved projects.
> I would, however, support the establishment of an EC study group to study what (if
> anything) 802 should do about emergency services, should anyone choose to propose forming
> one.
>
> Regards,
> Tony
>
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