1. Consolidating Standards to Enable Economies of Scale
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Consolidating Standards to Enable Economies of Scale
Tom Siep Member Group Technical Staff
Texas Instruments
Tom is also initial Technical Editor of the newly-formed IEEE Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) standards effort.
This document is a paper submitted to the IEEE Working Group and reflects the views of the author.
It is not an official IEEE document nor does it represent official policy of the IEEE.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

2. Overview The Standards Process for IEEE 802
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Overview
The Standards Process for IEEE 802
Why Different Standards Exist
Levels of Compatibility
IEEE WPAN Charter
Benefits of Commonality
What we will cover
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

3. The Standards Process Telecommunications Standards
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
The Standards Process
Telecommunications Standards
Why Standards Are Important
How IEEE 802 Establishes a Standard
The standards process is a carefully considered series of writing, reviewing, and voting.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

4. Telecommunications Standards
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Telecommunications Standards
Must define aspects of two devices, the transmitter and the receiver.
A transmitter without compatible receiver does not communicate.
Telecommunications standards define compatibility, not sameness.
The term standard was first used in 1138 AD in the description of the "Battle of the Standard" because "it was there that valor took its stand to conquer or die" This is the earliest use of the term as a flag or conspicuous object indicating a rallying point. Later the term evolved to indicate a physical definition often called "the king's standard.”
Today, standards are used for many purposes. Standards define a specific aspect of a device such as its external color or the size of lead in a pencil or type faces or computer operating systems. Device standards are very helpful in the manufacturing and distribution process, but are not necessarily crucial for function: f every pencil had a different diameter of lead, the scribe could still take notes.
Standards that directly support telecommunications such as the mechanical dimensions of a connector, the electrical properties of the signals that pass through the connector, or the protocols that maintain order in the data stream through the connector are critical to telecommunications.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

5. Why Standards Are Important
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Why Standards Are Important
To Users
Provides an open forum for discussion and development
Allows multiple vendors to offer compatible hardware
To the Industry in General
Seeds Development of Technology
Supports Interoperability of Multiple Vendors
Speeds Market Acceptance
To Semiconductor Suppliers
Ensure technology is optimized for function
Meet with Industry Technology Leaders
Can provide common base for multiple standards
To Users
Provides an open forum for discussion and development
Proprietary methodologies tend to close-ended with non-compatible changes/improvements
Allows multiple vendors to offer compatible hardware
More choices in the marketplace
To the Industry in General
Seeds Development of Technology
Cooperation by “expert” participants in industry
Peer review of new ideas enables rapid development of new ideas
Supports Interoperability of Multiple Vendors
Provides minimum base point feature set
Provides common test points at interfaces
Speeds Market Acceptance
Standards enable multiple vendors to participate and compete
Equipment providers rely on standards for product specification
To Semiconductor Suppliers
Ensure Semiconductor technology is optimized for function
Keep abreast of future system architectures
Contribute to standards to enable vendor’s solution
Enable flexible solutions
Meet with Industry Technology Leaders
Gain knowledge on future developments
Meet product designers and architects
Understand product roadmaps and performance requirements
Provide common base for multiple standards
Cross-standards coordination
Semiconductor road maps fed into standards process
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

6. IEEE Interfaces June 1999 doc.: IEEE 802.15-99011r1 June 1999
The blue square denotes the IEEE 802 committee. The is a Working Group that operates within this body. All external coordination is done under the auspices of the 802 committee, including industry consortia and other standards bodies.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

7. How IEEE 802 Establishes a Standard
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
How IEEE 802 Establishes a Standard
This is what happens in the Working Group (WG) to create an IEEE 802 standard. The WG has been chartered with a Project Authorization from NeSCom to create Wireless Personal Area Networks standards.
The first step in the process is to establish the criteria upon which any candidate standards will be judged. That process will begin at our first meeting in Montreal in July.
The next step is to create one or more draft standards. This is the most important and often the most difficult part of the standards process.
Once a draft standard has been created it is followed by a letter ballot vote. Voters have the option to vote
Approve
Abstain because of lack of expertise (same as not voting)
Do Not Approve (must give specific reasons)
All “Do Not Approve” votes must be addressed by the WG. The WG must decide whether to change the draft (and vote again) or, if it had a 75% approval, pass it to the pool of voters from the IEEE who have indicated an interest in the standard.
Once again, any Do Not Approve ballots must be answered. When no new votes have been garnered and if there is a better than 75% approval, the draft standard goes on to be formally adopted.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

8. Bluetooth and IEEE 802 June 1999 doc.: IEEE 802.15-99011r1 June 1999
Correspondence of Bluetooth to the ISO Open Standards Interface (OSI) model and how the IEEE standards map to them.
Note that IEEE has only two layers of the ISO-OSI while Bluetooth (as you well know) covers all of them. What is not indicated by this graph is that the normal place for the LLC layer is in a separate committee, This standard is common to 802 stacks, but each MAC may have some medium-specific clauses in the standard. Due to the unique nature of the wireless medium, will evaluate if there is sufficient flexibility for a Bluetooth-based standard to follow this model.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

9. Why Different Standards Exist
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Why Different Standards Exist
Regional
Special Purpose
Just Because
Regional standards exist due to several factors, but mostly because of regulation and/or tradition. Since wireless communications share the medium (the airways), there tends to be much more regulation of it. Bluetooth’s efforts at harmonization of the 2.4 GHz band are addressing this problem.
Special Purpose standards generally occur when a narrow interest group defines a telecommunications methodology. It sometimes creates a standard that others find impossible to use. The IEEE’s open process seeks to avoid narrow definitions while satisfying the stated characteristics and criteria established at the beginning of a standards process. The goal is to avoid special-purpose protocols by creating useful, meaningful and flexible standards.
Just Because standards happen, well, just because
The IEEE seeks to embrace industry standards, codify them, and make them available to the widest possible audience.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

10. Levels of Compatibility The Wireless Example
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Levels of Compatibility The Wireless Example
When dealing with the airways as a medium of communication, many possible interactions are possible between two protocol sets. This figure shows the continuum between full interoperability at the top to mutually destructive interference at the bottom.
The arrow marked “WPAN proposal?” represents where the newly-forming IEEE Working Group feels they will need to be. Exactly where on the continuum the WPAN standard lands is, of course, up to the participants of the Working Group.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

11. June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
IEEE Charter
The IEEE P WPAN Working Group is chartered with developing Personal Area Network standards for short distance wireless networks.
Build on emerging industry specifications
Provide an open forum to debate these proposals
Identify substantive issues
Build consensus on solutions
Goal is to create standards that have
broad market applicability
deal with the issues of coexistence and interoperability
widely used
More information is available at:
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

12. Possible Coalescence of Standards
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Possible Coalescence of Standards
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

13. Benefits of Commonality
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
Benefits of Commonality
Cooperation by “expert” participants in industry
Peer review enables rapid development of new ideas
Supports Interoperability of Multiple Vendors
Multiple vendors able to participate and compete
Semiconductor technology is optimized for function
Semiconductor road maps feed into standards process
Economies of Scale become realizable
Everyone benefits, the bottom line here is (of course) the bottom line
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments

14. IEEE 802.15 Meeting In Montreal
June 1999
doc.: IEEE r1
June 1999
IEEE Meeting In Montreal
Become part of the process!
For this (the first) meeting only -- voting rights are automatic for those who participate.
IEEE 802 LMSC Plenary meeting the week of July 5-9, 1999 at:
Queen Elizabeth Hotel
900 Rene-Levesque Blvd West
Montreal, PQ H3B 4A5 CANADA
Reservations: (800)
Phone: (514) Fax: (514)
Normally voting rights are conferred to participants only after they have attended two of four consecutive IEEE 802 Plenary meetings. Our rules allow the substitution of one Interim meeting for one of the Plenary meetings. The rules of the 802 committee allow participants in the first meeting of a Working Group to become voting members without having to first attend multiple meetings.
It is not required that you be an IEEE member to become a voting member of a Working Group. It is, of course, strongly encouraged.
“Participation” is defined by 802 as attending at least 75% of the scheduled sessions for a given meeting.
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments
Tom Siep, Texas Instruments