Minutes of the BOF Meeting Meeting on Negotiated QOS Multicast Communication (QOSMC) Orlando, Monday, December 7, 19.30-22.00 By Jack Houldsworth SC6 Internet Rapporteur Co-Chairs: Jack Houldsworth (Internet Rapporteur for ISO/SC6) and Herbert Bertine (Chair ITU-T SG7) Documents: Enhanced Communication Transport Service and Protocol (ECTS and ECTP): I-D for ECTS: draft-kim-jtc1-sc6-ects-04.txt URL for ECTP: http://pec.etri.re.kr.ects/ectp/#ectp The co-chairs suggested that ECTP might provide a solution to some known IETF QoS and Multicast control problems. It was emphasized that the work is not finalized and that ISO/IEC and the ITU-T would like to co-operate with the IETF to ensure that that the full problem space is covered. Alan Chambers (Convenor SC6/WG7) went over the evolutionary history explaining that ECTP is aimed at providing Enhanced Transport control for any networking culture, including Ipv4 or Ipv6, without affecting the applications above it. He explained that ECTP expects to exploit existing IP protocols, like RSVP. Professor Kim (SC6/WG7) presented the QoS and Multicast control aspects of ECTP identifying open questions and suggesting areas where co-operation could be fruitful. Wolfgang Fritsche (SC6/WG7) discussed Network Layer Multicast issues and suggested future co-operation on possible enhancements to IP routing protocols. The meeting was attended by around 150 delegates and there were several questions from the floor asking the speakers to clarify detailed points, mainly about the scope, and some discussion about scalability for large multicast groups. Around 20 delegates attended Profesor Kim's ECTP Demo throughout the following day, Tuesday 8th December, and the level of interest was reported to be good. In summing up for the IETF, Scott Bradner (Co-Transport Area Director) agreed that there are known problems in the areas which had been identified and if the work is not focused, several groups could invent a variety of different solutions to the same problem. He suggested that a simple statement that isolates the problem space filled by ECTP would help him to identify the areas where the IETF might co-operate. The co-chairs of the BOF agreed to ensure that this action is covered at the upcoming collaborative SC6 and SG7 session on ECTS/ECTP in January 1999 in Sydney. Participants can join the ECTP discussion list by mailing to: The simple document clarifying the problem space will be posted via this list. The ECTS/ECTP authors will also respond, via this list, to any questions that arise during the reading of the documents and will welcome ideas for improvement or widening the scope. The mood of the meeting was very reassuring. The old rhetoric about ISO and ITU-T has clearly disappeared and the IETF has clearly moved into a more co-operative mood. There were no specific actions to set up a new WG and this might, at first sight, appear to be disappointing. However, the IETF needs time to digest the details and equate the solution with their own problems. There will be more discussion with Scott Bradner after SC6 WG7 /ITU-T SG7 have forwarded the statement clarifying applicability to the IETF. After closer examination, it may be considered that the work would fit into other WGs, such as MMUSIC.