To: Rao Cherukuri MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance Technical Committee Chair RE: Communication of October 7th 2004 to the MPLS working group in IETF from the MPLS & Frame Alliance Dear Rao, thanks for the communication of October 7th 2004 from the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance on the deprecation of the Host Address FEC TLV from the LDP specification as it is moved to Draft Standard. The MPLS Working Group in the IETF is interested in establishing open and trustful communication with the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance. From our point of view it is important that such communication is based on a mutual understanding of the position of the organizations. We see the MFA as a potentially very interesting and competent source for requirements on the MPLS and GMPLS protocols, while the working groups could facilitate extensions and improvements that meets these requirements. It should also be agreed that the IETF is the only organization that could make changes and extensions to the MPLS and GMPLS protocols. We would also like to point out that the process on how changes and extensions to the MPLS and GMPLS protocols shall be managed is under discussion in the IETF Routing Area, including how input for such changes and extensions shall be received from sources outside the IETF. The MPLS Working Group is in the process of progressing the LDP specification from Proposed to Draft Standard. The IETF procedure for Draft Standards, requires that only those portions of a Proposed Standard which have been implemented and used operationally may be advanced. The Host Address FEC was discussed at the MPLS working group meeting in Washington DC on November 9th 2004. The consensus of the working group is that the Host Address FEC will be removed. As far as we know the Host Address FEC has not been used. Any information to the contrary would be useful. At the same time it was pointed at that it is possible for the MFA could request a new FEC. If the MFA wanted to keep the same value for the this new FEC as for the Host Address FEC, this could be done following the process for changing MPLS and GMPLS protocols, which is currently under discussion in the IETF Routing Area. The process involves sending an Internet-Draft describing the problem, which will be reviewed by the MPLS Working Group and the IESG before the WG considers the solution. The MPLS WG chairs stand ready to help in the request process to meet the need for a timely allocation of a new FEC to meet the MFA needs. Loa Andersson and George Swallow MPLS Working Group co-chairs -- Loa Andersson Principal Networking Architect Acreo AB phone: +46 8 632 77 14 Isafjordsgatan 22 mobile: +46 739 81 21 64 Kista, Sweden email: loa.andersson@acreo.se loa@pi.se