SUMMARY REPORT OF THE MAY 2000 MEETING OF IEEE 802.11:
Our May 2000 meeting was held at the Renaissance Madison Hotel, in Seattle, Washington. The meeting was hosted by Boeing, and organized by Mike McInnis. Cabletron Systems and Nortel Networks provided the 802.11 wireless network. Don Berry of Microsoft hosted a very interesting visit to Microsoft's Executive Briefing Center, where a very large 802.11b system is being installed. An evening session was scheduled for a presentation by the Wireless HUMAN (High-speed Unlicensed Metropolitan Area Network) study group of 802.16. They are proposing a deployment of  5GHz OFDM infrastructure by common carriers to offer city wide tariffed broadband access. There was some concern expressed that such a system could interfere with 802.11a users. In the closing plenary, interest was expressed in the formation of a study group to address a standard MAC to PHY interface for 802.11. This was considered early in the standard development, and was not chosen. There may be additional discussion on the reflector, but no motion was made to form a new study group.

Meeting Schedule:

The next meeting of 802.11 and 802.15 will take place at the IEEE 802 Plenary the week of  July 10 – 14, 2000 at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla, in La Jolla, CA, USA. See IEEE 802.11 Meeting Plan for details. There was a discussion of options for the venue for the January, 2001 Interim. Options under consideration include, Salt Lake City, UT, Orlando, FL, San Francisco, CA, and Israel.


Work in Task Group B - the Corrigendum of 802.11b's MIB:

Task Group B-Cor1 did not meet during this meeting. The chair, Victoria Poncini, was unable to attend. Work will continue outside the meeting, and a report will be delivered at the next meeting.


Work in Task Group D - Update of Regulatory Domains:

Task Group D met in Seattle to resolve comments received in response to the most recent working group letter ballot requesting the approval of the current draft of the proposed supplement to the 802.11 standard.  The majority of the comments addressed editorial issues in the draft.  The commenters suggested resolutions for these comments were accepted and incorporated into the new version of the draft.  There were also several technical comments received.  These comments were resolved to the satisfaction of the task group and the changes were also incorporated into the new version of the draft.  Document 00/111 contains the collected comments and their resolutions.  The new draft of the supplement (802.11d/D1.9) will be sent out to the working group for a default recirculation ballot to ask for approval to send it to a sponsor ballot after the July meeting.  Both the document containing the comments and their resolutions, as well as, the new draft may be found in the documents section of the web site.

Task Group d plans to resolve any comments received during the recirculation ballot at the July 10 – 14, 2000 meeting in La Jolla, CA and forward the draft for a sponsor ballot.


Work in Task Group E - MAC Enhancements:

The purpose of Task Group E is to: Enhance the current 802.11 MAC to expand support for applications with Quality of Service requirements. Provide improvements in security, and in the capabilities and efficiency of the protocol. These enhancements, in combination with recent improvements in  PHY capabilities from 802.11a and 802.11b, will increase overall system performance, and expand the application space for 802.11.

During the week of May 8th 2000, there were a number of technical papers and proposals presented. The primary focus of the presentations was on QoS, Security, and Authentication. The group also worked on refining the requirements and evaluation criteria for comparing the proposals. The task group made significant progress and is still targeting to circulate the initial draft to the working group at the November 2000 Plenary meeting.

During the July 10 – 14, 2000 meeting in La Jolla, CA, we will continue to finalize requirements, and develop the evaluation criteria. We will continue to accept and review technical papers and proposals.

Between this meeting and the next, we have scheduled three teleconferences. They will occur on May 24, June 8, and June 22 to help accelerate our progress.

We are inviting technical contributions from any interested parties at the July meeting.


Work in Task Group F - Inter Access Point Protocol:

The initial meeting of Task Group f occurred in Seattle, this week.  The task group covered administrative details, adopted a plan of work and schedule, and received two presentations.  One presentation summarized the submissions received previously by 802.11 and proposed some features that should be included in an inter-access point protocol (IAPP). The second presentation described a number of operational scenarios that an IAPP must deal with.  Both presentations are available in the documents section of the web site.

Task Group f plans to identify and finalize the functional requirements of an IAPP at the July 10 – 14, 2000 meeting in La Jolla, CA.  All parties interested in determining the functional requirements of an IAPP are invited to make submissions and attend the meeting. 


Regulatory Ad-Hoc Group Activities:

The purpose of the Regulatory ad-hoc group is to prepare letters or presentations to national, regional and global bodies involved in regulatory matters to obtain spectrum for standards under preparation by 802.11 and then maintain and protect spectrum used by devices working according to approved standards developed by 802.11.

During the week of May 8th 2000, the group prepared a presentation to express the 802.11 and 802.15 position on a Strawman proposal on the band plan for RadioLANs in the 5 GHz band in the United Kingdom. The Strawman was made by the UK Radio Communications Agency as result of the reaction to the Consultation document. IEEE 802.11 was one of six organizations invited to a conference organized by a Non Departmental Advisory Group, called Spectrum Management Advisory Group.

The group reviewed an ITU-R SG 7C analysis of the sharing capabilities of RadioLANs with Earth Exploration Radar Satellites. The result is favorable. Members are asked to review the parameters and contact the author of the paper in case they have comment.

An ETSI-BRAN Liaison paper requesting support from Regional members for placement of the RLAN spectrum on the WRC 2003 agenda, was reviewed, but a call to the ETSI-BRAN secretary revealed that the opportunity for a response was expired.

The group received a report on the status of the proceedings on FCC Docket 99-231 on Wide Band Frequency Hopping. The conclusion was that, to protect the spectrum for 802.11 devices, it was important that members show their support of the WECA proposal shortly.

The group received a paper describing the essential rules of the 5150-5250 MHz band in Japan.

Finally, the group received a liaison statement from ETSI-BRAN requesting further technical details regarding the 802.11 characteristics for the 5 GHz band to further analyze the IEEE request to recognize 802.11 as a HIPERLAN family member. Unfortunately, no action could be taken due to the late arrival of the statement.

During the July 10 – 14, 2000 meeting in La Jolla, CA, the group will review the need for actions in response to regulatory events and will respond to the questions from ETSI-BRAN.


Study Group - Higher Rate Extension to 802.11B:

The purpose of the Higher Rate IEEE 802.11b Study Group is to investigate technical extensions that are interoperable with the IEEE 802.11b-1999 standard and that can lead to higher than 20Mbps data rates and other performance improvements

During the week of May 8th 2000, there were nine technical papers and proposals presented. The primary focus of the presentations was on the feasibility of extending the IEEE 802.11b standard to rates in excess of 20Mbps.  During the week, the study group drafted a PAR and 5 Criteria for extension of the IEEE 802.11b standard.  The study group moved unanimously to refer the PAR and 5 Criteria to the IEEE 802.11 Working Group.  The IEEE 802.11 Working Group voted unanimously for referral of the PAR and 5 Criteria to the IEEE 802 Executive Committee for consideration at the July 2000 Meeting.

The study group has been empowered to continue work at the July 10 – 14, 2000 meeting in La Jolla, CA, in anticipation of attaining approval of the PAR.  The study group will begin work on defining functional requirements and performance requirements for the new extension.

The study group expects to issue a Call for Proposals in July 2000, assuming that the PAR is approved. 


Marketing Ad-Hoc Group Activities:

The purpose of the Marketing ad-hoc group is to generate marketing collateral and overview material on 802.11 for the working group.  The materials will be used to keep the working group informed on new develop on WLAN from a market perspective.

During the week of May 8th 2000, the group had its first meeting. The group reviewed the marketing materials and templates generated by 802.15 WPAN’s marketing committee.  The materials included straw man procedures on marketing requirements for marketing requirement documents (MRD’s), trademarks and conference lists.

During the July 10-14 meeting in La Jolla, CA, the group plans to have joint marketing meetings with 802.15 and 802.16, to continue building on the development of marketing materials.  In addition the group will start developing marketing overview materials on 802.11 for the website. 


USEFUL LINKS TO OTHER SITES:

IEEE P802.11 WLANs RELATED OTHER SITES

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