AT&T This draft makes comparisons of various multi-area TE methods, which are evaluated against specific criteria. Four basic path selection approaches are compared: a) distributed methods, b) path-computation-server (PCS) methods (centralized & distributed), c) interarea-flooding methods, and d) multiple-path-compare methods. These approaches include needs to support PCS functionality, query functionality, crankback functionality, summary-te-LSA functionality, and TE feedback functionality. The target is to converge on a reduced subset of required multi-area TE methods and protocol extensions.