[atoca] ATOCA certainly still needed.

["'Mark Wood'" <[e-mail]>]

Friends,

I would like to say that the work of ATOCA is very much needed. This is
absolutely NOT the time to put it on the back burner.  

I have not been intervening in the matters at hand because the members have
been doing the job well enough that I am satisfied with what is being done.
My sponsors DRCF have small resources so I don't travel to a conf on their
buck unless there is a good reason for me to be there in physical person,
and I have been well satisfied so far. 

Meantime, in the cellular world, the Multicast Address Harmonisation
recommendation at ITU-T SG2 and has stopped without any agreement on further
work at the ITU other than a possible 'Supplement', so we don't need to wait
for any recommendations to appear from them. 

However the 3GPP HAS done all that is needed, and the 3GPP has published its
latest revision of the standard affecting public warning (3GPP 023.041
V11.1.0) (section 9) for GSM, UMTS and LTE, and this work is moving on very
rapidly and to the satisfaction of nearly everyone. 

Harmonisation has been achieved between the USA CMAS/WEA system, the South
Korean system and the international ETSI 102-900 system EU-ALERT, so I am
very satisfied with the work that 3GPP has done and I don' plan to replicate
any of it elsewhere. 

Member states also seem satisfied with the options that 3GPP have presented
them with, I don't see anyone trying to re invent a different wheel, in fact
nations are building chariots now. 

Now that the matter is settled in the cellular world and the wheels are
being put up on the wagons, its time to look at the IP world so that we have
complementary offering. 

My MSc thesis project for this coming year (I am 'bogged down' with the
London Olympics logistics at the moment) is to study the matter of provision
of Public Warning systems over multicast technology in IP4 and IP6. Is it an
appropriate solution at all? If so we need to see if there are any gaps in
the technology, that need addressing, or if it is OK as is. My current
feeling is that there are three ways of dealing with this issue.

1 Emulate a 'PWS like' system rather similar to 3GPP solution, (simplest,
much of this work is already 'running code').
2 Have a completely different philosophy more applicable to IP networks.
3 A hybrid solution cherry picking the best of both.  

I am keeping an open mind on the matter at the moment, but I hope to have it
very clearly crystallised by this time next year.

So, I would implore the ATOCA to keep open while we further discuss what
more research and recommendations will be needed going forward, I don't
think we have looked at all of these matters just yet and the starting gun
has only just fired on this important matter. If we find that we don't need
any more recommendations, then we can close the matter for now. 

As soon as the Olympics are done with, I will be focusing on this matter and
I assure you that I will be providing a lot of quality input to this group
from now on. Please, keep this focus group going, and there is a noble and
worthy reward at the end of the line, we will all have reason to be proud of
this work if we see it through.  

Mark Wood DRCF.