Fred, Hmm. Is self-organizing mesh access network with (some) explicitly mobile participants really that dissimilar from what the claimed goal of manet is? Seems to me that's perfectly in scope. Further, I think if you review the charter for the manet wg you could be convinced they're explicitly in scope. And, from EarthLink Municipal Networks perspective, we're hardly a 'wired network' operator a la incumbent telco, even though elements of those types of networks may help bring our wireless mesh to life in the end. So, if what we're doing isn't part of manet, what is the appropriate industry forum to work out IP routing issues etc? What is the appropriate context for manet if it isn't what I read the charter to state? Is it really just, for example, autonomous devices navigating in a sensor network? Best regards, Christian On Feb 15, 2006, at 4:35 PM, Fred Baker wrote:
The big question there is whether it is helpful for an operator of a wired network to comment on a routing technology for a network that is fundamentally dissimilar from his target topology. Not that there is no valid comment - the security issues are certainly related. But if you want to say "but in my continental or global fiber network I don't plan to run a manet, so this is entirely stupid" - which is nearly verbatim the operator comment I got in a discussion of manet routing in a university setting three years ago - the logical answer is "we didn't expect you to; do you have comments appropriate to a regional enterprisish network whose 'core' is a set of unmanned airplanes flying in circles and connects cars, trucks, and other kinds of vehicles?".
So operators are certainly welcome in a research group, but I would suggest that operator concerns/requirements be tailored to operational use of a manet network in a context where it *is* appropriate.
On Feb 14, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Christian Kuhtz wrote:
Hmm, well, when there is lots of vendor and academia involvement, no, there's no operator community presented in number of things I'm following in the IETF. Take manet, for example, I don't even know to begin where to inject operator concerns/requirements. :-/