Project: IEEE P802.15 Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs)

1. Project: IEEE P802.15 Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) Submission Title: Why We Want a Single 60 GHz Standard Date Submitted:18 September 2007 Source: Eduardo (Ed) Casas, Intel Corporation Address: 2111 NE 25th Ave, Hillsboro, OR 97124 Voice: +1 250 412 2838, E-Mail: eduardo.casas@intel.com Abstract: A common standard for all 60 GHz devices would have many benefits. These include increased utility since more devices can communicate with each other, reduced market confusion, better performance, reduced interference, reduced costs, reduced power consumption and a smaller form factor. Conformance at the lowest protocol stack layers is most useful. Standards development should address the reasons why vendors develop proprietary implementations. Purpose: This document is submitted as an informative contribution to TG 3c. Notice: This document has been prepared to assist the IEEE P802.15. It is offered as a basis for discussion and is not binding on the contributing individual(s) or organization(s). The material in this document is subject to change in form and content after further study. The contributor(s) reserve(s) the right to add, amend or withdraw material contained herein. Release: The contributor acknowledges and accepts that this contribution becomes the property of IEEE and may be made publicly available by P802.15. Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

2. Why We Want a Single 60 GHz Standard Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

3. Example • WiFi and Bluetooth: • incompatible PHY and MAC share the same unlicensed band • is this unavoidable? • do we want something like this at 60 GHz? Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

4. Utility of the Network • Metcalfe’s Law: the value of a network grows as the square of the number of devices that can communicate with each other Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

5. Consumer Acceptance • single standard helps build customer awareness & acceptance • multiple standards creates confusion and delays market growth • single standard enables common user interfaces and authentication methods Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

6. Performance • conformance to a common standard: • ensures fair and efficient channel utilization • enables QoS guarantees • allows for effective frequency re-use Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

7. Interference • interference between devices can be minimized if all use the same standard • no self-interference if devices only have to support one 60 GHz radio Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

8. Reduced Costs • economies of scale mean lower costs: • hardware components • marketing • software development • customer support • lower implementation and conformance costs Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

9. Power Consumption & Form Factor • support for multiple standards may require multiple antennas and multiple active radios in the same device • particularly difficult for portable battery-powered devices Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

10. What Needs to Be Common? • protocol stacks may peer at different levels: • PHY: preambles, modulation, coding • lower MAC: channel access rules • upper MAC: association, authentication • higher-level protocols (TCP, HDMI, PCI, …) • conformance at the lowest layers (PHY & lower MAC) is required by all devices • services provided by higher layers are more likely to be device-specific • interoperability requires peering at all levels, coexistence requires peering only at some Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

11. Reasons For Non-Standard Products • reduced design effort and time to market • to enable use of lower-cost hardware • for product differentiation through additional features or better performance • to avoid cost & delay of conformance testing • to avoid paying royalties Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation

12. What to Do? • these issues need to be addressed during standards development • examples (for discussion): • Do we need to publish reference implementations • Do we need to permit subsets and proprietary extensions • extend vendor-specific IE concept to allow proprietary MCS? Eduardo Casas, Intel Corporation