Re: [6lowpan] IP over Narrowband Radios

Hi Tim,

I agree with you in the design issues, but think that your proposal is
more suitable/applicable for ROLL WG not in 6LoWPAN WG, because this
WG is more about WPAN. However, it is an interesting to see your
work/proposal in a draft I-D. I have not worked on your topic but
understand that the engineering comparison of short range and large
range may not be correct by excluding network complexity and cost.

In particular, I think you need to be sure that the layer 1 (Radio) is
defined and specified, I recommend that layer 2 (L2) to be a standard
(e.g. IEEE, ITU, or other standards ORG). Then in the I-D you propose
standard of IP over (L2 of VHF/UHF Radio) similar to 6Lowpan I-Ds,
but I don't think we can standard L2 in IETF if it is not existed and
used in the Internet.

I may be wrong, if so please reply,

AB
+++

On 6/30/12, Timothy J. Salo <salo@saloits.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is anyone looking at running IP over narrowband very high frequency
> (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF) data radios?  A couple of major
> issues come to mind.
>
> First, bandwidth is extremely limited and valuable.  These radios may
> provide bandwidths of only 9,600 bits-per-second (bps), 4,800 bps, or
> even less.  Networks composed of these radios might be viewed as
> _wide-area_ wireless sensor networks (WSNs) (in contrast to the
> "local-area" WSNs typically built with 6lowpan devices).  Link
> distances in these narrowband networks may be kilometers or even
> tens-of-kilometers long.  The narrowband radios used in these networks
> may transmit with one to five watts of power.  In my view, the
> extremely low bandwidths of these networks, combined with the very high
> energy cost of transmitting a bit, is likely to drive different
> engineering tradeoffs in protocol design (compared to 802.15.4
> networks, where link bandwidths are relatively high and the cost of
> transmitting a bit is relatively low).  For example, in a narrowband
> network, it may make much more sense to compute or store information
> whenever possible, rather than transmitting it (more than one) over
> the air.  While I have not yet done the analysis, it seems to me that
> it is quite likely that the engineering tradeoffs make in 6lowpan are
> different than the engineering tradeoffs that might be made in a
> narrowband radio network.  Perhaps, there is utility in a collection of
> IP-over-narrowband-radio RFCs.
>
> Second, there is a pretty complete lack of standards for narrowband
> data radios, most importantly at the physical and MAC layers.  While
> this topic is outside of the purview of the IETF, it is a serious
> impediment to building interoperable products.  It might also complicate
> the process of standardizing IP-over-narrowband-radio specifications.
>
> -tjs
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