Subject: Process has been circumvented again

From: Eric Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 11:00:18 -0700

George/Vijay,

	I don't recall there being a specific consensus 
to accept these documents as working group drafts:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-mpls-hdr-comp-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-mpls-hdr-comp-over-ppp-00.txt

	Did I miss it?  I noticed that the minutes from
Adelaide showed that there was consensus to perform 
work in this area, but is that the same as accepting
these drafts?

--
Eric Gray

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From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:10:23 -0400

Eric,
         Yes, you missed it. (Sometimes minutes don't capture the fullness 
of a discussion, oh well...)  There was specific agreement in Adelaide to 
bring these documents into the working group, i.e., to make them WG 
documents.  At least that's what I witnessed.

Lou

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From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 17:01:08 -0400

I wasn't in  Adelaide so I can't comment on what  might have happened there.
But I would  be interested in knowing why MPLS  header compression is deemed
useful.  

Header compression  is generally  used only on  lower speed links.   Are you
envisioning the use  of MPLS for traffic engineering  on low-speed links, or
are you worried about supporting VPNs over a low-speed backbone?

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From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 07:54:20 -0400

It's intended to enable the use of MPLS (in general) on lower speed links
for applications where minimizing overhead is required.  In the described
scheme MPLS/IP/UDP/RTP headers can be compressed down to 2 or 4 bytes.
There was also another scheme presented in Adelaide.  IMO both make sense,
as the two schemes are useful in different parts of a network.

For some reason the slides from our (and all other) presentations didn't
make it into the proceedings.  If interested, I've posted them at
http://www.labn.net/lberger/docs/cmpls-0003.pdf

Lou

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From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 10:14:22 -0400

Lou> It's intended  to enable the  use of MPLS  (in general) on  lower speed
Lou> links for applications where minimizing overhead is required.

I think  that discussion  of these drafts  should be deferred  until someone
shows that there is an application  which requires that MPLS be run on lower
speed links.  

Adrian> Lou will have a definitive answer

Well, I guess not ;-)

Adrian> I think it is most interesting in the VoMPLS world where each packet
Adrian> may be small (16 byte?) and  the headers (IP, RTP, MPLS) become very
Adrian> significant.

Perhaps.  But one needs the confluence of VoIP, MPLS, and low-speed links to
make  this useful.   If we're  going to  consider putting  something  on the
standards track,  I think we should  better understand whether  it is really
needed.

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From: Robert M Matheson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 15:27:35 +0100

> standards track,  I think we should  better understand whether  it is really

Isn't this equivalent to saying that such header compression would be useful if
the use of MPLS extended into the access network? Has this happened yet? Does
anyone have a view as to whether it will happen?

Robert

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From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 10:49:15 -0400

I guess this means we need to repeat some of the discussion that happened 
in Adelaide in Pittsburgh.  I'll ask George for some time...

Lou

BTW Yes, some are planning to run MPLS at the edge on lower speed links and 
believe that they need compression.  The alternative is to preclude the use 
of MPLS at the edge.

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From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 10:59:24 -0400

Robert> Isn't this  equivalent to saying that such  header compression would
Robert> be useful if  the use of MPLS extended into  the access network? Has
Robert> this happened  yet? Does anyone  have a view  as to whether  it will
Robert> happen?

These days,  the edge  rarely consists of  the 9.6  kbps lines that  were so
common when IP header compression was first used.  I wonder how common it is
even  to use  IP  header compression  these  days.  I  would  still like  to
understand better the application which uses low speed links and MPLS.

Lou> I  guess this  means we  need  to repeat  some of  the discussion  that
Lou> happened in Adelaide in Pittsburgh.

Or on the mailing list.

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 16:05:57 +0100 (BST)

On Thu, 20 Jul 2000, Eric Rosen wrote:

> even  to use  IP  header compression  these  days. 

Those 9.6kbps links are now wireless 9.6kbps GSM links or links on its
descendents, and there's a lot of interest in increasing efficiency of
those links.

Hence the rohc WG:
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/rohc-charter.html
http://www.cdt.luth.se/rohc/

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

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From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 11:17:45 -0400

>Lou> happened in Adelaide in Pittsburgh.

Fine with me, particularly since we've already reach a level of "consensus" 
at the last WG meeting.

Lou

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From: "tom worster" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 11:30:22 -0400

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Eric
Rosen
> understand better the application which uses low speed links and MPLS.

yup -- me too. in pittsburgh, hopefully.

> Or on the mailing list. 

that would be jolly good too.

c u
tom

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From: "tom worster" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 11:37:06 -0400

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Lloyd
Wood
> descendents, and there's a lot of interest in increasing efficiency of

descendents such as 3g. which neatly points out the importance
of v6 support as a requirement.

c u
tom

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From: George Swallow <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 11:44:59 -0400

> yup -- me too. in pittsburgh, hopefully.

We can give this a little time if we can't reach consensus on the
list.

> that would be jolly good too.

Preferable.  There's already been more discussion than we'll have time
for in Pittsburg.

...George

==================================================================
George Swallow       Cisco Systems                   (978) 244-8143
                     250 Apollo Drive
                     Chelmsford, Ma 01824

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From: Bora Akyol <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 10:30:53 -0700

I thought 3G speeds were up to 2Mbps. If they are still at 9.6Kbps then they
should named (-1)G.

Seriously, why not run IP with VJ compression instead of MPLS all the way to
the mobile phones. What else does MPLS buy you?

Bora

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From: "tom worster" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:49:57 -0400

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Bora
Akyol
> I thought 3G speeds were up to 2Mbps. If they are still at 

in 3g it can, and will, change rapidly from one to the other.

> the mobile phones. What else does MPLS buy you?

as i recall: the ip version of 3g needs a tunnel from the 
serving node down to the terminal. the ones they use in
gprs are way clunky for a big high speed network. mpls 
fits the bill and, as a bonus, has this neat header 
compression feature built right in. since the tunnel
can cross several hops, mpls works better than datalink
compression.

i don't work on that stuff so don't take my word. maybe
there's a 3g expert on the list who can give you a better
answer.

c u
tom