[MMUSIC] Connection Data Capability (ccap) and IP-addresses (draft-ietf-mmusic-sdp-miscellaneous-caps-04)

[Flemming Andreasen <[e-mail]>]

Greetings

As you may have seen, there has recently been some list discussion on 
the "connection data capability" defined in 
draft-ietf-mmusic-sdp-miscellaneous-caps-04 (see e.g. thread in 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/mmusic/current/msg10472.html)

To recap, the connection data capability ("ccap") provides capability 
negotiation capabilities for what amounts to the "c=" line in regular 
SDP, and as such enables negotiation of network type (such as "IN") and 
IP-address information (v4 and v6 addresses). The Standards Track 
mechanism for negotiating and determining alternative IP-address 
information today is ICE, and hence the draft currently includes the 
following wording:
<quote>
The 'ccap' capability attribute is intended to
    be used only when there is no other mechanism available for
    negotiating alternative connection address information, such as when
    the <nettype> is different among the alternative addresses (e.g.
    "IN" and "PSTN").  The 'ccap' attribute MUST NOT be used in
    situations where an existing mechanism (such as Interactive
    Connectivity Establishment (ICE) [RFC5245]) can be used to select
    between different connection addresses (e.g.  "IP4" and "IP6" or
    different IP addresses within the same IP address family).
</quoted>

The above text has led to some confusion as to exactly when and what 
"ccap" can be used for. More specifically, is it/should it ever be 
allowed to use "ccap" to convey an IP4 or IP6 address, and if so, under 
what circumstances ?

If you have an opinion, please let us know.

A couple of points to keep in mind:
- The current document has been WGLC'ed without comment ~6 months ago.
- 3GPP has a dependency on the document (however I'm not sure if that 
dependency includes the above "IN" feature)
- The connection data capability is defined in a general manner to be 
generally useful in line with the overall capability negotiation 
framework (as opposed to targeted at one specific use case with one 
specific value)
- There are scenarios where ICE cannot be used, even if implemented 
(e.g. ice-mismatch).
- RFC 6849 (media loopback) provides for NAT traversal in the absence of 
ICE support


Thanks

-- Flemming