Re: [DNA] RE: Review of draft-yegin-dna-l2hints-01.txt

[Greg Daley <Greg.Daley@eng.monash.edu.au>]

Hi Stephen,

I'm responding since your e-mail was in 
response to a mail from me, but I'd guess
that the draft authors can speak for themselves.

----- Original Message -----
From: "McCann, Stephen" <stephen.mccann@roke.co.uk>
Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 5:58 pm
Subject: [DNA] RE: Review of draft-yegin-dna-l2hints-01.txt

> Dear all,
> 	I have a very naive question for this current
> excellent review process.

It doesn't seem to be naive...
 
> Is it possible to remove specific references to IEEE
> 802.11 from this document and generalise on IEEE 802
> wireless technology?
> 
> My angle on this, is that I think Link-Hints are also
> required for systems such as IEEE 802.16.
> 
> The recent RFC 3748 (EAP) strives to provide a solution
> for all IEEE 802, whilst referring to specific IEEE 802.11
> issues that we are all familiar with.
> 
> I wonder if the same approach can be made here?

I think that the link-hints draft has been waiting for
review for a while (my fault?), and not so much
work has been done recently.

With regards to generic 802 hinting technology, 
I'd guess that the work of 802.21 will be of
particular interest when it's matured.
Given that not all networks will explicitly support 
these measures, we'll probably have to deal with
the 802.?? networks themselves.

If there are significant similarities between the
802.11, 802.16, 802.20 and 802.15 technologies, it
may be possible to handle them together (potentially
as you described  with EAP/802.1X).
Looking at the EAP RFC (section 7.12) seems to indicate that
certain aspects (certainly for link-down) have been considered.


I'd guess that elaborating protocols exhaustively may
be a difficult task, though. If there are too many
differences (or new protocols) it may be better to
tackle some protocols separately, as need and resources
arise.

Perhaps people who have experience with the protocols
from these groups can indicate whether this is the case.

Greg