June 2004 IETF/IEEE 802 Liaison Report

Outstanding IEEE 802 Requests

With the publication of RFC 3748, the IETF has completed all documents requested by IEEE 802, with the exception of one:
draft-walker-ieee802-req. An -02 version of that document has now been submitted to the IETF archive, and IEEE 802.11 will vote on this version at the plenary in Portland, OR, which is now ongoing. The belief is that the -02 version addresses the IESG DISCUSS comments as well as IETF Last Call comments. Given that a vote is scheduled this week, Dorothy Stanley has requested to be informed ASAP if there are any further technical changes required by the IETF.

CAPWAP Status

There is no new status on review items relating to the CAPWAP WG. As noted in the June report, feedback has been provided on the CAPWAP Architecture document, and 802.11 has voted for formation of a Study Group on AP functional architecture.

New Work

IEEE 802 is now posting proposed new PARs to the IETF New Work list and proposed new work in the IETF is now flowing to the IEEE 802 ExComm. Hats off to Paul Congdon and Bert Wijnen for getting this working.

Network Selection Activity

As a result of the January 2004 Liaison meeting, IEEE 802 and IETF have agreed to coordinate on new work. At that meeting, Network Selection was identified as a potential area where cooperation would be required. This appears to have been confirmed at the IEEE 802 Plenary currently ongoing in Portland, OR.

3GPP has recently requested that the IETF publish an individual submission specifying an EAP-based solution to the Network Selection Problem (see
draft-ietf-eap-netsel-problem).

The IEEE 802.11 WIEN and Fast Roaming groups met jointly on Tuesday, July 13. Among the topics discussed was whether 802.11 should undertake standardization of Network Selection, and if so, how. During the meeting an alternative was proposed to the 3GPP proposed solution, to be implemented in 802.11 instead of within EAP.

After some discussion a straw poll was held, asking whether 802.11 should proceed forward with standardization of Network Selection. The vote was unanimous (55 – 0) that IEEE 802.11 undertake a standardization effort.

The next question was which 802.11 group should handle standardization of Network Selection. By a vote of 50-1, the group voted to handle standardization of Network Selection within the IEEE 802.11 WIEN SG.

Based on the strength of the vote, my understanding is that a liaison letter will be sent to the IETF, requesting IEEE 802.11 review of IETF documents relating to Network Selection. This includes the Network Selection Problem Statement, as well as documents proposing a solution to the Network Selection problem.

These events are consistent with previous input given to IETF by the chair of IEEE 802.11, Stuart Kerry. When we met with Stuart in January 2004 at the Vancouver IEEE 802 plenary, he expressed concern about potential conflicts between IETF work on Network Selection and the work of the 802.11 WIEN Study Group. As a result, Stuart requested that the IETF not charter WG work items beyond the Network Selection Problem Statement document, until the WIEN study group was further along.