IEEE C802.16ppc-10/0048
Project
IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Working Group <http://ieee802.org/16>
Title
Comments on 802.16p PAR Form and Five Criteria
Date
Submitted
2010-07-14
Source(s)
Shilpa Talwar, Nageen Himayat, Kerstin Johnsson,
Jose Puthenkulam, Boyd Bangerter
Email:
shilpa.talwar@intel.com
Intel Corporation
Re:
Call for Contributions for 802.16p Machine to Machine Communication
Abstract
The contribution addresses comments to 802.16p PAR from, and proposes some
recommendations
Purpose
For discussion in PPC working group
Notice
Release
Patent
Policy
This document does not represent the agreed views of the IEEE 802.16 Working Group or any of its subgroups. It
represents only the views of the participants listed in the “Source(s)” field above. It is offered as a basis for discussion.
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IEEE C802.16ppc-10/0048
Comments on 802.16p PAR Form and Five Criteria
Introduction
This contribution addresses comments of external parties on 802.16 PAR Form and Five Criteria [1]. The
comments are summarized below, and text changes are proposed.
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1.1
Terminology
Machine to Machine Communications
> The language in the PAR scope and purpose seems rather heavily based around buzz words that
don't have clear meanings.
> Machine to Machine communication - all LAN communication is machine to machine in a reasonable
sense of that term. (BTW, it isn't clear why Machine to Machine is capitalized in 5.2.) Even
if you mean communication from machine to machine without a human directly initiating the
transaction, much of internet traffic and data center traffic running on existing 802 networks
fits that description. E.g. data transfers between servers, management monitoring, back-up.
There should be a better term to describe communication with small automated devices for
purposes such as observation and control.
> Even if one accepts that "machine" means some sort of autonomous device such as cameras,
sensors and controllers, the communication with them is probably person/computer to machine
and vice versa rather than the machines chatting amongst themselves. It seems that the issues
addressed are more the need to efficiently support lots of simple machines connecting to the
network regardless of whether messages are going between machines or machine to computer.
 We propose some alternate names: ‘Automated Machine Communications’, ‘Autonomous Device
Connectivity’, ‘Embedded Device Communications’, etc.
1.2
Human-centric
> Human-centric - I've looked around and don't see any consistent use of human-centric in
a sense that works here. It seems to mostly be used with regard to technology to refer to
making technology easy to use for humans. You seem to be using it more in the sense of human
initiated or human controlled. And again, much of network traffic is already machine initiated.
 We propose to adopt suggestion of ‘human initiated or human controlled’ to replace ‘human-centric’
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Distinct Identity
> Regarding the 5 Criteria - Distinct Identity a): It isn't entirely accurate. The motivation
for 802.3af Power over Ethernet standard was largely an enhancement to meet the needs of devices
such as cameras, sensors and controllers so that they didn't require a separate power connection
so there was a prior standard with the objective of providing for such devices. I'm not saying
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IEEE C802.16ppc-10/0048
that your proposed work doesn't have distinct identity - just that the distinctness isn't
as broad as your current statement. 802.3 already addresses large numbers of devices and very
low power operation. Perhaps you can make your statement more accurate by qualifying it as
applying to subscriber or wireless networks.
 We propose to add text around licensed operation, managed access, and wide-area coverage, which are
identities unique to 802.16 family of standards.
Text changes
--------------------------------------------- Text Start
Abstract:
---------------------------------------------------
Automated Machine Communications PAR Form and Five Criteria
2.1 Title: Amendment to IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks - Part 16: Air Interface
for Broadband Wireless Access Systems – Enhancements to support Automated Machine Communications
5.2 Scope: This amendment specifies IEEE Std 802.16 medium access control (MAC) enhancements and
minimal OFDMA PHY modifications to support automated machine communications [for purposes such as
management and control of embedded devices]. The enhancements are lower power consumption at the
device, support by the base station of significantly larger numbers of devices, extremely low latency, and
efficient support for small burst transmissions. This amendment provides continuing support for
WirelessMAN-Advanced Air Interface and legacy WirelessMAN-OFDMA equipment.
5.4 Purpose: To enable more efficient communications for a range of applications in which the device
communications are automated rather than human initiated or managed.
5.5 Need for the Project: Many applications require network access for machines that involve
communication requirements significantly different from those used to support typical human network
access. Such applications include secured access and surveillance, tracking, tracing and recovery, public
safety sensors, vehicular telematics, healthcare monitoring of bio-sensors, remote maintenance and
control, smart metering, automated services on consumer devices, retail digital signage management.
Distinct Identity
Each IEEE 802 standard shall have a distinct identity. To achieve this, each authorized project shall be:
a) Substantially different from other IEEE 802 standards.
b) One unique solution per problem (not two solutions to a problem).
c) Easy for the document reader to select the relevant specification.
a) Substantially different from other IEEE 802 standards:
This standard is unique in its objective of providing enhancements to IEEE 802.16 standard to support
automated machine communications. Such capabilities are clearly distinct in terms of what’s provided in
other standards because it requires unique enhancements like wide area connectivity, operation of devices
in licensed bands, managed access, handling of extremely large number of devices, very low power
operation, efficient support of very short bursts, etc.
b) One unique solution per problem (not two solutions to a problem):
There is no other standard in IEEE 802 that is specifically targeting automated machine applications
specifically requiring cellular wide-area coverage at this time. So this is the only project that is targeting
cellular machine type applications at this time.
c) Easy for the document reader to select the relevant specification.
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The title of this standard and the scope is distinct enough for document readers to discern the application
of this standard.
---------------------------------------------- Text End
---------------------------------------------------
Reference
[1] IEEE 802.16ppc-10/0003r6, Machine to Machine (M2M) Communication PAR Form and Five Criteria,
May. 2010
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