Hi folks,
RFC 3002 is the final form of a VERY useful (and brief) document:
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc3002.txt
The IAB (Internet Activities Board) is the parent body that
charters both the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force - for
protocols) and IRTF (Internet Research Task Force - long-term
research).
Note the market prediction that the mobile Internet may be as large
as the wired Internet as soon as 2003!! This has major implications
for all network products.
This is the most readable short tutorial on the technical issues
and barriers for the Wireless Internet that I've ever seen.
In particular, serious technical limitations of both IPv4/IPv6 (and
IPsec security) and TCP are discussed. The concerns of the ground-
aircraft-, and satellite-based wireless infrastructure providers are
surveyed. URLs to the dozens of presentations by subject matter
experts are included.
Cheers,
- Ira McDonald, consulting architect to Sharp and Xerox
High North Inc
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Below are the Abstract and Introduction from RFC 3002:
Abstract
This document provides an overview of a workshop held by the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB) on wireless internetworking. The workshop
was hosted by Nokia in Mountain View, CA, USA on February 29 thru
March 2, 2000. The goal of the workshop was to assess current and
future uses of Internet technology in wireless environments, to make
recommendations on research and standardization tasks to improve
acceptance of Internet network and transport protocols in wireless
environments, and to evaluate methods to improve communication and
collaboration among Internet standards working groups and those of
the telephony and wireless sectors. This report summarizes the
conclusions and recommendations of the IAB on behalf of the IETF
community.
1 Introduction
Wireless technology, including wireless LANs, data transfer over
cellular radio (GSM, 3GPP, etc), and mobile operations from aircraft
and near earth spacecraft are becoming increasingly important. Some
market projections suggest that a mobile Internet in parallel with or
augmenting the wired Internet may be comparable in size to the wired
Internet as early as 2003.
The wireless operators have not, however, chosen to use IPv4, TCP,
full HTTP/HTML, and other applications for a variety of reasons.
These relate to edge device cost, bandwidth limitations, perceived
protocol imperfections, unnecessary complexities, the chattiness of
the application protocols, and network layer addressing issues.
Unfortunately, this creates some serious issues at the wired/wireless
demarcation: end to end operation is sacrificed, security is
compromised, and automated content modification in some form becomes
necessary. The IAB considers these to be serious fundamental issues,
which will in time be a serious impediment to the usability of the
combined Internet if not addressed.
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB), on February 29 thru March 2,
2000, held an invitational workshop on wireless internetworking. The
goal of the workshop was to assess current and future uses of
Internet technology in wireless environments, to make recommendations
on research and standardization tasks to improve acceptance of
Internet network and transport protocols in wireless environments,
and to evaluate methods to improve communication and collaboration
among Internet standards working groups and those of the telephony
and wireless sectors.
The following topics were defined for discussion:
+ Local area wireless technologies
+ Cellular wireless technologies
+ Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
+ Near-space and aviation wireless applications
+ Voice over IP (VoIP) over wireless networks
+ Security over wireless networks
+ Transport and QoS over wireless networks
+ Use of WWW protocols over wireless and small screen devices
+ Addressing requirements for wireless devices
+ Compression and bit error requirements for wireless networks
The fundamental question addressed in these discussion is "what are
the issues, and what really needs to be done to unify the Internet
below the application layer." Applications will also need to be
addressed, but were perceived to be more than could be usefully
discussed in a three-day workshop, and probably require different
expertise.
Section 2 presents a concise overview of the individual presentations
made during the workshop. References to more extensive materials are
provided. Details on major discussion topics are provided in section
3. Section 4 presents the recommendations made to wireless
operators, IRTF, and IETF on the architectural roadmap for the next
few years. It should be noted that not all participants agreed with
all of the statements, and it was not clear whether anyone agreed
with all of them. However, the recommendations made are based on
strong consensus among the participants. Finally, section 5
highlights references to security considerations discussed, appendix
A lists contact information of workshop participants, and appendix B
lists the author contact information.