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Robust Header Compression
charter-ietf-rohc-05

Document Charter Robust Header Compression WG (rohc)
Title Robust Header Compression
Last updated 2010-03-16
State Approved
WG State Concluded
IESG Responsible AD David Harrington
Charter edit AD (None)
Send notices to (None)

charter-ietf-rohc-05
The Robust Header Compression (ROHC) Working Group was formed to 
  develop new header compression protocols, designed to suit today's and 
  future target link technologies. Most specifically, the ROHC protocols 
  were to take into account typical needs presented by various wireless 
  link technologies, and perform well for cellular links built using 
  technologies such as WCDMA, EDGE, and CDMA-2000. Protocol development 
  has thus focused on coping with issues such as high loss rates and long 
  round trip times.  
   
  The WG has specified a common compression protocol platform, the ROHC 
  framework, along with a number of compression protocols (profiles). 
  Most focus has been on compression of the Real-time Transport Protocol 
  (RTP) headers, but profiles have also been specified for compression of 
  UDP, ESP, IP-only, UDP-Lite, and TCP headers. The WG has further 
  produced a ROHC link integration specification for PPP, an optimized 
  RTP compression scheme for "0-byte compression", a ROHC MIB, as well as 
  various informational documents related to ROHC header compression 
  and/or header compression in general.  
   
  In addition to the work on header compression, the ROHC WG has also 
  developed the SigComp (Signaling Compression) protocol for end-to-end 
  compression of text-based signaling protocol messages.  
   
  The working group maintains connections with other standardization 
  organizations developing cellular technology for IP, such as 3GPP and 
  3GPP-2, to ensure that its output fulfills their requirements and will 
  be put to good use.  
   
  The current aims of the working group are:  
   
  - to carry out a re-work of the ROHC framework and profiles  
  specifications, hereafter referred to as the ROHCv2 project. The 
  purpose of the ROHCv2 project is to generate a separate framework 
  specification, not changing the framework part of the ROHC protocol, as 
  well as a set of revised compression profiles. The most specific goals 
  with the ROHCv2 profiles are to improve tolerance to packet reordering 
  between compressor and decompressor, and to reduce the overall 
  complexity of the protocol. It should be noted that the v2 profiles 
  will thus not be compatible with the original (ROHCv1) profiles, which 
  means less complex ROHC implementations can be realized by not 
  providing support for ROHCv1 (over links not yet supporting ROHC, or by 
  shifting out support for ROHCv1 in the long run). Profile support is 
  agreed through the ROHC channel negotiation, which is part of the ROHC 
  framework and thus not changed by ROHCv2.  
   
  - to update and correct the original profile specifications through 
  publication of the "Corrections and Clarifications to RFC 3095"-  
  document.  
   
  - to finalize the ROHC profile work for TCP header compression.  
   
  - to develop and/or document proper protocol solutions to apply ROHC 
  over IPsec tunnels.  
   
  - to finalize the "SigComp implementer's guide" and "SigComp for SIP" 
  documents.  
   
  The longer term goal of the working group is to advance all its 
  specifications to Draft Standard status (with an exception for the 
  original profiles being revised as part of the ROHCv2 activity).