Subject: MMUSIC/ITU Interoperability Scenarios

From: [email-masked] (Monty Gill)
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 17:40:43 -0400 (EDT)

Hi there!

This is in connection with the  MMUSIC/ITU Interoperability Scenarios 
Internet draft by Bormann, Ott.

The scenario that has been presented boils down to the following
three cases (if I have understood correctly) :-

1. Either the ITU compliant products incorporate "understandability"
about the IETF based products (so that only ITU products need to 
understand the packet formats/features etc of the IETF based products and 
not vice versa) OR,

2. The IETF based products make sure they can interoperate with the 
ITU products.

Both the above seem infeasible to me as each of the groups has its
own objective of patronising its protocols.

3. The third alternative from the draft is to have a "gateway" that 
understands both the technologies. This is much like the case of having
Routers which understand and inter-convert LAN protocols like SNA, 
TCP/IP, IPX. So do we see history repeating itself here? I think it is.

In the case of routers as mentioned above, we still don't have a unique
protocol standard, perhaps we never will - because each protocol is
suited to it's kind of environment. The fate of the ITU-MMUSIC struggle
looks pretty much the same. Standards for multimedia conferencing and
all that follows, from both the groups are in almost the same nascent
state. Perhaps, ITU's ISDN based standards succeed finally, perhaps users
prefer LAN based conferencing systems rather than ISDN PSTN kind of
services. I think now it depends only on the end user, unless of course
a major (superior) technology/concept/algorithm invention is brought 
forward from one of the groups.

To put it plain and simple, HAVE WE LOST DIRECTION?
DO WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE HEADED?

Monty Gill

Concurrent Engineering Research Center,
West Virginia Univeristy.

---

From: [email-masked] (Ari Ollikainen)
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 95 15:39:22 PDT

> forward from one of the groups.

	Just in case you haven't heard it before, or often enough:

	a. The users DON'T CARE what the underlying mechanism is AS LONG 
	   AS the application works with apparent seamlessness!

	b. Users will adapt to low-quality and low-speed multimedia
	   (and conferencing) AS LONG AS it's free or nearly so. (CU-SeeMe, 
	   InternetPhone, NetPhone, VideoVu, QuickTime...)

	c. *Some* users perceive the true value of interoperability through
	    open standards; most don't care (PostScript, M$*, NetWare, ...)
	 
> To put it plain and simple, HAVE WE LOST DIRECTION?
	
	T-120 is a great example of re-invention, duplication of 
	function and creeping featurism to add "data" exchange to the 
	H.320 suite. Some have even seriously suggested running TCP/IP over
	the T.120 data pipe...

	IETF MLPP(MPP) is an elegant solution for adaptive, dymamic bandwidth
	utilization although universally implemented BONDING (H.244) would
	make it unnecessary.

	As long as ITU-T (the telecomm type) and IETF (the packet people)
	can't see eye-to-eye on anything or even understand how their
	DIFFERENT solutions for the same problem(s) ultimately need to 
	converge, the standards processes are severely damaged.

> DO WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE HEADED?
	Obviously NOT.

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