[802SEC] 802.16 position with respect to 802.15.3a PAR
Bob:
The following motion carried in the 802.16 Closing Plenary by a vote
of 17-1-12:
Motion: To direct the 802.16 chair to vote against the 802.15.3a PAR
and convey the following opinion to the SEC:
The 802.15.3a study group has produced a PAR (doc00134.doc of the SEC
server, as the (local) 802.15 website does not seem to provide a
version anywhere), which manages to convey almost no tangible
information apart from a targeted data-rate of 110 Mbps. The response
to our questions reveals that it's going to be a license-exempt
system, but even this is not mentioned anywhere in the PAR. In
principle, a single PAR should not be so overly broad that it might
cover such a wide range of frequency allocations that in principle it
could end up with a distinct PHY for each of the allocations, as
there is no single technology that covers all of bands indicated in
the response to our questions. There is no feasible way to compare
proposals which address for example the 5 GHz, UWB and 60 GHz bands,
because they have nothing in common apart from the targeted
data-rate. It is hence to be expected that this PAR will lead to at
least one PHY for each of the bands mentioned in the response to our
questions, resulting in an undesirable mushrooming of PHYs within the
802.15 WG.
When searching through the documents of the 802.15.3a study group, it
is not credible to maintain that the study group cannot establish a
decision on narrowing down the PAR to one single band (or provide
multiple PARs for the individual bands it is really considering). We
do therefor believe that the 802.15.3a study group is attempting to
obfuscate which band it intends to pursue, in order to circumvent any
reasonable concerns other WGs might have. We hence find that
insufficient information has been provided in this PAR to allow
reasonable consideration by other WGs.
Further, the 802.15 WG cannot possibly claim multiple vendors in its
5 criteria for this PAR, as each of the vendors present may well have
had an entirely different system/band in mind.
In addition, approving PARs which are this fuzzy on intent sets an
extremely bad precedent for any future PARs, since it would allow WGs
to develop systems without the merest oversight by 802 members and
co-ordination by the SEC.
We therefor recommend that the 802.15 be instructed to amend its PAR
to be narrower in scope and resubmit it for consideration at the
following 802 plenary to allow reasonable review by other WGs.
Regards,
Roger