Re: [MEXT] the future of the MEXT working group

On Nov 3, 2011, at 7:43 PM, ext Hesham Soliman wrote:

> Hi Charlie,
> 
> I agree completely with you on the problems with the current interfaces in
> LTE, and in 3G before that.
> I don't know what the best way to go about it would be. I say this because
> many people on this list are aware of what's happening in LTE and
> presumably have similar opinions about the complexity of their solutions,
> but it's still there.
> 

Unless you can make a clear and definitive case that the current LTE solution does not work or scale or inefficient in terms of performance or otherwise, it is difficult to bring about change. Complexity has its own benefits.. Its just a matter of who the beneficiaries are :)
Hence claiming complexity as the reason to consider alternatives is an uphill task. If this complexity becomes an issue in terms of interop, CAPEX/OPEX costs etc. that may trigger a revisit to the architecture. 

-Raj

> Hesham
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Charles E. Perkins" <charles.perkins@earthlink.net>
> Organization: Wichorus Inc.
> Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:49:21 -0700
> To: Jari Arkko <jari.arkko@piuha.net>
> Cc: <jouni.korhonen@nsn.com>, <mext@ietf.org>
> Subject: Re: [MEXT] the future of the MEXT working group
> 
>> Hello folks,
>> 
>> For several years now, I have been studying 4G wireless
>> network architecture and wondering why there is such a
>> disconnect between, say, LTE mobility management and
>> IETF mobility management.  Mobile IP has a secondary
>> role, to say the least.  IETF approaches may be seen to
>> have several inadequacies, and 3GPP approaches also show
>> some major problems.  I think that it is important for
>> the IETF to devote some serious effort towards bringing
>> these two worlds together, because current directions
>> are leading towards an impossibly baroque, wasteful,
>> nearly impenetrable mess of complication.  The effects
>> overall is loss of performance and opportunity.
>> 
>> Taking a look at S101 and S103, we can immediately
>> recognize that they are drastically more complicated,
>> restrictive, and operationally more expensive than
>> Mobile IP.  Taking a look at S102, we immediately see
>> that 3GPP mobility management threatens to be different
>> for each class of application, with an unnecessary
>> per-application proliferation of servers, protocol,
>> permissions, traffic controls, configuration, and so on.
>> Taking a look at recent efforts towards WiFi offload,
>> we see the same trend of complication and software
>> hacks that could be avoided with proper IETF
>> approaches.
>> 
>> On the IETF side, we should specify:
>> - Integrated authentication for access control
>>  as well as IP address continuity
>> - Location-assisted handovers (think MIIS / ANDSF)
>> - Modular/alternative security
>> - Signaling on control plane, user traffic on
>>  data plane
>> - Alternative tunneling (GTP is simply not going
>>  to die a quick death, to say the least)
>> - geez, the list does go on, but no one reads
>>  long lists ...
>> ...
>> 
>> I don't know if we already have 3GPP liaison, but
>> if we do the communication channels don't seem to
>> have had very much effect within the [mext] work
>> lately.
>> 
>> My fear is that if we don't take action, we are
>> choosing a future that is ever more complicated,
>> non-extendible, non-flexible, radio technology
>> specific, application specific, and bug-ridden.
>> In short, everything we don't want the Internet
>> to be.  And, I am sure no one here doubts that
>> the Internet of the future is all high-speed
>> wireless.  Where is the IETF going to be?
>> 
>> If the [mext] working group is shut down, there
>> is no natural place for this work to happen.
>> Therefore, I hope that [mext] would NOT shut
>> down, and instead recharter to tackle these
>> urgent problems.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Charlie P.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 10/28/2011 5:08 AM, Jari Arkko wrote:
>>> All,
>>> 
>>> We are making some changes to the working group. While we have
>>> successfully published a large number of specifications in recent years,
>>> recently it has been difficult to make progress in the group. The chairs
>>> and ADs have looked at the situation and we believe we need a new focus
>>> and a bit of new organization as well. We are terminating the working
>>> group and moving the one remaining active work item to a new working
>>> group, the "DMM" working group. Here's what is going to happen:
>>> 
>>> o Jouni Korhonen and Julien Laganier will become the chairs of the
>>> group.
>>> 
>>> o The group will meet in Taipei (there is a MEXT slot in the agenda).
>>> 
>>> o The charter of the group will be changed to focus only on the
>>> distributed mobility effort. We should discuss the details of this
>>> charter change both on the list and in the meeting. The meeting agenda
>>> should reserve some time both for technical discussions as well as the
>>> charter discussion.
>>> 
>>> o Once the discussion on the list and in the meeting has finished, we
>>> will rename the group to "DMM" and put the new charter in effect.
>>> 
>>> o If there are any other specifications that people would like to
>>> publish beyond the distributed mobility work, we can offer to AD sponsor
>>> them to RFCs outside the new working group. If there is some significant
>>> new activity, we can create new working groups for that.
>>> 
>>> Comments and feedback and/or alternate suggestions on this plan are
>>> welcome.
>>> 
>>> We would like to thank Marcelo for your many years of service in MEXT.
>>> We could not have completed all the work we did without your energy and
>>> push for high quality results. We would also like to thank Jouni for
>>> taking on this new challenge, and Julien for continuing the work in this
>>> space.
>>> 
>>> Jari and Ralph
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> MEXT mailing list
>>> MEXT@ietf.org
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mext
>>> 
>> 
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