stds-802-16: announcement of 802.16 Session #7.5: May 30-June 2 in Boulder

["Roger B. Marks" <marks@boulder.nist.gov>]

This is the first announcement of IEEE 802.16 Session #7.5, to be 
held May 30-June 2, 2000 in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

This meeting arises from a decision at the Session #7 Closing Plenary 
on May 5. The draft minutes read as follows:

"Motion#5, Arun Arunachalam, 2nd Jay Klein, to hold an 802.16.1 
meeting beginning at 1 pm May 30 and ending at 1 pm Friday during 
Memorial Day week (May 30 to June 3). Jim Mollenauer proposed a 
friendly amendment to shorten the meeting to start on Tuesday and end 
on Thursday. The amendment was not accepted by Arun Arunachalam. 16 
for, 3 against, Motion#5 passes."

Following this motion, I have arranged for space at the:

Regal Harvest House
1345 28th St
Boulder, CO 80302-6899 USA
+1-303-443-3850 (tel)
1-800-545-6285 (toll-free)
+1-303-443-1480 (fax)

This was the site of Session #0 and Session #3.

I have arranged for the hotel to reserve the Century Room (rated at 
96 people with tables) and the Sunshine Room (rated at 24). No other 
large rooms are available at this time, but some smaller rooms may be.

I am assuming that, if only 802.16.1 meets, we will hold no parallel 
sessions and therefore need only the Century Room. 802.16.2 indicated 
that it plans to meet before Session #8; it is welcome to use the 
Sunshine Room if it chooses to. 802.16.3 has indicated that it does 
not plan to meet again until Session #8.

The hotel is holding 50 guest rooms for us. It appears that there are 
still plenty of guest rooms unreserved (the groups using most of the 
space that week are local).

I don't have an agenda for the 802.16.1 meetings, but it appears that 
interest is mainly in addressing PHY and MAC modeling issues; these 
issues were given less than full attention at Session #7 due to the 
focus on adopting a draft. It might also be a good time to move 
forward with discussions of the PHY draft. I will work with the PHY 
and MAC groups to develop a plan.

In the discussion at Session #7, one member suggested that this kind 
of short-notice meeting tends to disenfranchise our most distant 
participants. I agree, and I think we ought to be very careful about 
such meetings in the future. To help address some concerns in the 
current case, here are a few points:

(1) There will be no 802.16 Plenary Meetings associated with Session 
#7.5; it will be a meeting of Task Groups (802.16.1 and possibly 
802.16.2) only. No Working Group level decisions will be made.

(2) Participation in Session #7.5 will not count towards 802.16 membership.

Given the unusual nature of this meeting, it is going to be difficult 
for me to predict the turnout. I would like to request that you 
notify me AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you expect to attend so I can 
finalize the hotel arrangements. Afterwards, I will set up a more 
formal registration system.

Roger