Re: [re-ECN] Conex charter - now in External Review

[Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>]

>     (I also note that Stewart asked about MPLS forwarding: that's a
> quite separate question which may deserve more of an answer than
> I have already given...)
Let me explain why I keep asking about MPLS.

The stated purpose of CONEX is to provide visibility of congestion state 
within the network.

A very large fraction of provider networks use MPLS as their primary 
forwarding mechanism.

In those networks there will only be visibility of the congestion state 
at the network ingress and egress unless an MPLS solution is designed.

If the intent is to design a mechanism that works under the assumption 
that congestion state will normally only be visible at network 
boundaries, then that should be in the charter. If the intent is not to 
make that assumtion, then we should have a very high degree of 
confidence that we can find a viable MPLS solution.

Bob's answer to MPLS in Anaheim was to take it out of scope, but that 
does not address  the central of whether the technology is viable for 
deployment without MPLS support.

- Stewart