IEEE P1901 Draft Standard
for Broadband over Power Line Networks: Medium Access Control
and Physical Layer Specifications
Report on the meeting held
in San Francisco, CA, USA, 4-6 November 2008
Prior to the San Francisco meeting HomePlug-Panasonic and
Mitsubishi merged their proposals for the Access cluster
of requirements, and the last surviving In-home proposal
from HomePlug-Panasonic-Hisilicon was updated. Both proposals
were presented for a first round of confirmation voting.
The proposals require 75% majority approval from the working
group to become part of the baseline of the standard (see
the down selection process
for more detail).
The confirmation vote on the Panasonic-HomePlug-HiSilicon
In-Home proposal was conducted first. The proposal received
affirmative votes from 72% of the working group and thus
failed to become part of the baseline of the draft standard.
The confirmation vote on the HomePlug-Panasonic-Mitsubishi
Access proposal was conducted second. The proposal received
affirmative votes from 68% of the working group and thus
failed to become part of the baseline of the draft standard.
Following these failures to confirm, a three-week comment
period was opened. The Working Group will begin addressing
received comments during a meeting via teleconference scheduled
for the 9th of December 2008. The adressing of comments
will continue during the face-to-face meeting to be held
16-18 December 2008 in Kyoto, Japan (see next
meetings). A round of confirmation voting will be held
by the end of the meeting in Kyoto on proposals related
to the three clusters of requirements.
The Working Group also discussed improvements to the Down
Selection Process that will facilitate the resolution of
comments associated with No and Abstain votes and thus facilitate
progress towards a 75% WG consensus on a baseline document.
A proposal related to improvement of the process will be
submitted for approval during the next face-to-face meeting
in Kyoto.
June 2005 - PAR approved
November 2005 - Adoption of the general
work flow - Formation of a sub-group to develop unified
requirements
January 2006 - Approval of the use cases - Decision to split
the requirements into three clusters: In-Home, Access and
Coexistence/Interoperability
March 2006 - Approval of the down
selection process to achieve the baseline of the standard
- Approval of the description of topologies.
September 2006 - Approval of the channel and noise models.
February 2007 - Approval of 400 requirements split into
three clusters: access, in-home and coexistence - Calls
for technical proposals
June 2007 - 12 proposals received; 4 proposals per cluster
of requirements
July 2007 - 11 proposals passed the low hurdle vote; 4 in-home
proposals, 4 access proposals and 3 coexistence proposals
September 2007 - Only two proposals per cluster remain for
consideration after voluntary mergers.
October 2007 - One in-home proposal and one access proposal
remain as candidates for confirmation after the first round
of elimination voting.
March 2008 - A single coexistence proposal remains as candidate
for confirmation after the last round of elimination voting.
July 2008 - The first round of confirmation voting for the
in-home, access, and coexistence proposals is held. All
three votes fail.
September 2008 - The second round of confirmation voting
for the in-home, access, and coexistence proposals is held.
The votes on the in-home and access proposals fail. The
vote on the coexistence proposal is ruled invalid because
the number of abstain votes exceeds the established percentage.
November 2008 - The second round of confirmation voting
for the in-home and access proposals is held. Both votes
fail.
About IEEE P1901
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20 to more than 50 members. Members are corporations, government
agencies, trade associations, universities, and standards
developing organizations. Each entity has one vote.
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