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| To: 802.16 Reflector cc: 802 EC Reflector I have unfortunate news to report on P802.16g. On 26 April, after three Sponsor Ballot recirculations and a 99% approval ratio (136 Approve, 2 Disapprove), I submitted P802.16g/D9 to RevCom: Yesterday, the approval request was rejected by the IEEE-SA Standards Board, upon RevCom's advice. To the best of my understanding, the core reason for the rejection was that some of voters submitted comments directly to the Working Group instead of using the IEEE-SA's myBallot system. This was partly related to the unresolved comments of the two disapprove voters: This issue was raised by several RevCom members prior to the meeting. Phillip Barber (the Task Group Chair) and I prepared responses to those comments for RevCom consideration, arguing that the WG did follow documented procedures and, because it was required to address all comments, had little choice in how to proceed: <http://ieee802.org/16/docs/07/80216-07_032.pdf>. I participated by telephone in the RevCom meeting of 6 June to discuss these issues but was unable to reverse the opinion. [I would like to add that the RevCom administrator responded to the research in our response by indicating that 802.16-07/012r4 seems to have not been included in the second recirculation; if so, it was likely due to an accidental omission on my part, for which I assume responsibility. However, RevCom at no time raised this issue in its deliberations, so it does not appear to have directly affected the decision.] During the RevCom meeting, I requested advice as to what kind of approach we could follow to assure that we satisfy RevCom's concerns. When no clear answer arose, I requested assignment of a RevCom "mentor" to provide feedback and assurance that our future steps will be satisfactory. Geoff Thompson volunteered. The formal notice of disapproval is below, and at: I am pleased to see that it provides some explicit directions on how we can proceed: "The Sponsor must conduct a recirculation ballot to show all unresolved comments associated with negative votes, and their responses, to the ballot group. The Sponsor is encouraged to input all comments and responses into the myBallot system for ease of submittal package review by RevCom. The Sponsor shall inform the ballot group that the myBallot system must be used as the mechanism for ballot comment submission." The middle sentence may be the most challenging. Based on my understanding of the software, I am not currently aware of any way to input comments and responses into the myBallot system prior to a recirc. I have inquired with IEEE-SA staff as to whether they can arrange a way to do so. RevCom does not hold conference call meetings during the summer, so the next chance for RevCom review of this draft is 26 September. This delay will cause pain to the interesting parties. Since the base standard will by then be more than three years old, it appears that we may need to address the rule prohibiting amendments after three years. There are some exceptions to the rule, but I don't fully understand the language in the IEEE-SA Standards Board Operations Manual, so further research will be required. I'm copying the IEEE 802 EC so that other Working Groups will be aware of this problem. Working Groups receiving comments outside the myBallot system will need to decide whether to address those comments or to ignore them. I am concerned that they will face risk either way. In any case, it would certainly be wise to make an effort, in your Sponsor Ballot cover letters, to steer your voters toward the use of myBallot. Regards, Roger Roger B. Marks <r.b.marks@ieee.org> NextWave Broadband Inc. Chair, IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access <http://WirelessMAN.org> Begin forwarded message:
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