802.20 March 2009 Closing Report

Good progress was made during the Vancouver session of teh 802.22 WG in advancing the comment resolution process. A comment confirmation electronic ballot will be launched soon to confirm the resolutions that were achieved over teleconference calls since the January Plenary Session as well as the comments that were reviewed in Vancouver. The plan is to complete the comment resolution process in Montreal in May and either launch a re-circulation of the 802.22 Draft following the May session or an new WG ballot depending on the support from the commentors.

Three meetings of the ECSG were attended by the 802.22 members. The outcome is that the 802.19 TAG will form a Study Group to continue discussing White Space coexistence. Steve Shellhammer will schedule bi-weekly teleconferences on White Space coexistence and hold meetings during the upcoming face-to-face sessions. However, it is unclear whether this will include discussions on coordination of broadcast incumbent sensing such as the need for synchronized quiet periods. The need for discussions on a common approach to interface with the incumbent database seems to have been overlooked in the final conclusions

The comments to the FCC for a Petition for Reconsideration from the IEEE 802 were discussed over three meeting periods with the 802.18 WG during the week. Agreements were reached with 802.11 on most points and those where no agreement could be reached were left out (elimination of wireless microphone sensing from 802.11, increase of sensing repetition to 2 sec. for wireless microphones from 802.22 and need for synchronized sensing periods from 802.22). The new PAR for extending the work of 802.22 to mobile and portable applications was put on the agenda for the Friday EC meeting. Buzz Rigsbee and Mike Lynch agreed to act as mover and seconder respectively. Comments were received on Tuesday from 802.11 and 802.16. G. Chouinard responded to these comments before the deadline on Wednesday afternoon but no attempt was made to include the requested modifications to the PAR expecting that it would not go through in its current form because the main objection being that one cannot bring a PAR that modifies a Standard that has not yet been approved as in the case of the 802.22 standard.

The following motion was presented during the Friday EC meeting: "Move to forward the 802.22a PAR on Physical and Medium Access Control Layers for Combined Fixed, Mobile, and Portable Operation in the TV Bands (Document #22-29r0) to NesCom". (re: 5C: #22-30r1)

The comments were:

The members of the EC graciously provided some help in indicating possible ways to proceed: At the end, the motion was withdrawn in view of presenting it again under the right format at the July Plenary.

Apurva Mody accepted to take on the chairmanship of the ad-hoc group on the spectrum manager (the cognitive section 9 of the Draft) and held three meetings during the week. Ad-hoc group teleconferences will be held for the MAC, Coexistence, PHY, Security and Spectrum Manager topics between the Vancouver and the Montreal sessions.

The group expressed a desire to have a discussion at the 802.22 WG level to clarify when a motion is to be considered technical versus procedural. The P&P's are rather vague and the group would like to have more precise guidelines developed for the future conduct of the work.

Furthermore, Ivan Reede volunteered to lead an ad-hoc group on the review of the OFCOM Report on Cognitive Access to the Digital Dividend in the UK TV bands. Mike Lynch indicated that he needs about one week to get the eventual comments through 802.18 and another week through the EC approval. This means that the 802.22 comments should be sent to 802.18 at the latest April 17th. The work will be done over email and teleconference calls.

The plan of action in 802.22 for reviewing the access requirements to the incumbent database was also discussed. Winston Caldwell agreed to extract the material that was developed in the 802.22 Recommended Practice and format it as a new 802.22 document. Discussions could then take place in 802.22 during the May session to clarify the requirements for atabase access from the 802.22 perspective. This was discussed in the context of the ECSG but there does not seem to be a venue to pursue this discussion at the 802 level.

Cheng Shan, the secretary of the WG indicated that he will not be able to continue as secretary of the group. A new volunteer will need to be found for the Montreal Interim.