Subject: [mobile-ip] fast MIPv6 approach

From: Phil Roberts <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 03:07:56 -0400

So there are a few.  A short list might include:

what is the role of layer 2 triggers in fast handoff operation?
what is the significance of particular layer 2
capabilities/architecture/link characteristics?
should the handoff operation be mobile controlled or network controlled?
how fast is fast enough?

So far we've tried to accommodate differences of opinion on these issues by
the inclusion of various methods
in the document and write a specification that allow the operation over
technologies with different underlying
capabilities and with different assumptions about the role of the network.
It is difficult to believe that we're
going to reach consensus as a working group on resolution of the above
difficult issues.  We can spend a lot
of time arguing about it, but these disagreements were evident in the
original design team and the recent discussion
confirms they are still around.

Could we step back and have a discussion on the meta issue of whether we
should continue to have an approach
of a single specification that covers all cases, or consider some approach
to organizing the work that takes a new
course?

One way to go might be to have a base specification that described the tools
needed for implementing fast
handovers (messages and packet formats) and a few specifications that
described fast handover for various
kinds of network technologies.  Experience with the latter could refine the
former, and could certainly give
very concrete specificity to the operation of the protocol in a particular
environment.  It could also help implementors
of access routers determine what exactly needed to be implemented for
interfaces that supported links on a
particular technology.