RE: [802.21] transport layer for MIH IS.
It may be that you covered this in more detail at your meeting...
I can think of at least 4 different possibilities:
(1) Define new MAC specific management frames (e.g. a variant of action frames in 802.11). This would require changes to each MAC specification, but would allow the MAC to give these frames whatever priority was required.
(2) Transport in an L2 data frame with a new Ethertype allocated for the protocol. This would not require any MAC changes for an 802 MAC, but would require you to live with the different priorities available for data frames, and probably would need some special support within cellular.
(3) Carried in IP packets. Gives you wider addressability than L2, but it's not clear that you need this if you're only going from STA to AP (or whatever you call them). In practice, the IETF are likely to insist on you using UDP encapsulation.
(4) Carried over TCP. Built-in reliability, but do you want it?
Plus all the advantages and disadvantages you've already mentioned...
Mike.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-21@ieee.org [mailto:owner-stds-802-21@ieee.org] On Behalf Of David Xiang
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 8:31 PM
To: STDS-802-21@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: [802.21] transport layer for MIH IS.
When we consider the complexity of .21 implementation and interaction with
other media standard, we need to think of our transport layer for
information service exchange with network or peer, though it seems out of
scope of .21 from most of the proposals.
I saw two ideas of transport layer from the proposals: IP application, and
L2. I just want to get your thoughts on which one is better.
IP:
Pros: 1. Generic and less impact on other media standard,
2. Give more implementation flexibility for .21 information service
and other requirements.
3. More easy to be implemented.
Cons: 1. slow
2. Not reliable or robust as L2 transport, but IP application can
become robust with some good mechanisms.
L2:
Pros: 1. faster
2. More robust
Cons: 1. Too rely on other media standard which may not good for .21
implementation.
2. Not flexible, any time .21 do some changes on SI, it may request
all other media standard to do some changes too.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
David