FEC Framework Working Group                                    M. Watson
Internet-Draft                                          Digital Fountain
Intended status: Standards Track                        October 24, 2008
Expires: April 27, 2009


                Forward Error Correction (FEC) Framework
                    draft-ietf-fecframe-framework-03

Status of this Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 27, 2009.


















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Abstract

   This document describes for a framework for using forward error
   correction (FEC) codes with applications in public and private IP
   networks to provide protection against packet loss.  The framework
   supports applying Forward Error Correction to arbitrary packet flows
   over unreliable transport and is primarily intended for real-time, or
   streaming, media.  This framework can be used to define Content
   Delivery Protocols that provide Forward Error Correction for
   streaming media delivery or other packet flows.  Content Delivery
   Protocols defined using this framework can support any FEC Scheme
   (and associated FEC codes) which is compliant with various
   requirements defined in this document.  Thus, Content Delivery
   Protocols can be defined which are not specific to a particular FEC
   Scheme and FEC Schemes can be defined which are not specific to a
   particular Content Delivery Protocol.



































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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Definitions/Abbreviations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Requirements notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   4.  Architecture Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   5.  Procedural overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.1.  General  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.2.  Sender Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.3.  Receiver Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   6.  Protocol Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     6.1.  General  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     6.2.  Structure of the source block  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     6.3.  Packet format for FEC Source packets . . . . . . . . . . . 21
       6.3.1.  Generic Explicit Source FEC Payload Id . . . . . . . . 23
     6.4.  Packet Format for FEC Repair packets . . . . . . . . . . . 23
       6.4.1.  Packet Format for FEC Repair packets over RTP  . . . . 23
     6.5.  FEC Framework Configuration Information  . . . . . . . . . 24
     6.6.  FEC Scheme requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   7.  Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   8.  Transport Protocols  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   9.  Congestion Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
     9.1.  Normative requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
   10. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
   11. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   12. Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
   13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
     13.1. Normative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
     13.2. Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 39




















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1.  Introduction

   Many applications have a requirement to transport a continuous stream
   of packetised data from a source (sender) to one or more destinations
   (receivers) over networks which do not provide guaranteed packet
   delivery.  Primary examples are real-time, or streaming, media
   applications such as broadcast, multicast or on-demand audio, video
   or multimedia.

   Forward Error Correction is a well-known technique for improving
   reliability of packet transmission over networks which do not provide
   guaranteed packet delivery, especially in multicast and broadcast
   applications.  The FEC Building Block defined in [RFC5052] provides a
   framework for definition of Content Delivery Protocols (CDPs) for
   object delivery (including, primarily, file delivery) which make use
   of separately defined FEC Schemes.  Any CDP defined according to the
   requirements of the FEC Building Block can then easily be used with
   any FEC Scheme which is also defined according to the requirements of
   the FEC Building Block.  (Note that the term "Forward Erasure
   Correction" is sometimes used, 'erasures' being a type of error in
   which data is lost and this loss can be detected, rather than being
   received in corrupted form - the focus of this document is strictly
   on erasures, however the term Forward Error Correction is more widely
   used).

   This document defines a framework for the definition of CDPs which
   provide for FEC protection of arbitrary packet flows over unreliable
   transports such as UDP.  As such, this document complements the FEC
   Building Block of [RFC5052], by providing for the case of arbitrary
   packet flows over unreliable transport, the same kind of framework as
   that document provides for object delivery.  This document does not
   define a complete Content Delivery Protocol, but rather defines only
   those aspects that are expected to be common to all Content Delivery
   Protocols based on this framework.

   This framework does not define how the flows to be protected are
   determined, nor how the details of the protected flows and the FEC
   streams which protect them are communicated from sender to receiver.
   It is expected that any complete Content Delivery Protocol
   specification which makes use of this framework will address these
   signalling requirements.  However, this document does specify the
   information which is required by the FEC Framework at the sender and
   receiver - for example details of the flows to be FEC protected, the
   flow(s) that will carry the FEC protection data and an opaque
   container for FEC-Scheme-specific information.

   FEC Schemes designed for use with this framework must fulfil a number
   of requirements defined in this document.  Note that these



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   requirements are different from those defined in [RFC5052] for FEC
   Schemes for object delivery.  However there is a great deal of
   commonality and FEC Schemes defined for object delivery may be easily
   adapted for use with the framework defined here.

   Since the RTP protocol layer is used over UDP, this framework can be
   applied to RTP flows as well.  FEC repair packets may be sent
   directly over UDP or over RTP.  The latter approach has the advantage
   that RTP instrumentation, based on RTCP, can be used for the repair
   flow.  Additionally, the post-repair RTCP extended report
   [I-D.ietf-avt-post-repair-rtcp-xr] may be used to obtain information
   about the loss rate after FEC recovery.

   The use of RTP for repair flows is defined for each FEC Scheme by
   defining an RTP Payload Format for that particular FEC Scheme
   (possibly in the same document).



































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2.  Definitions/Abbreviations

   'FEC'  Forward Error Correction.

   'AL-FEC'  Application Layer Forward Error Correction

   'FEC Framework'  A protocol framework for definition of Content
      Delivery Protocols using FEC, such as the framework defined in
      this document.

   'Source data flow'  The packet flow or flows to which FEC protection
      is to be applied.

   'Repair data flow'  The packet flow or flows carrying forward error
      correction data

   'Source protocol'  A protocol used for the source data flow being
      protected - e.g.  RTP.

   'Transport protocol'  The protocol used for transport of the source
      data flow being protected - e.g.  UDP, DCCP.

   'Transport payload'  Data used as the payload for the transport layer
      (e.g.  UDP or DCCP packet payload)

   'Application protocol'  Control protocols used to establish and
      control the source data flow being protected - e.g.  RTSP.

   'FEC Code'  An algorithm for encoding data such that the encoded data
      flow is resiliant to data loss or corruption.

   'FEC Scheme'  A specification which defines the additional protocol
      aspects required to use a particular FEC code with the FEC
      Framework, or (in the context of RMT), with the RMT FEC Building
      Block.

   'Source Block'  the group of source data packets which are to be FEC
      protected as a single block

   'Protection amount'  The relative increase in data sent due to the
      use of FEC.

   FEC Framework Configuration Information:  Information which controls
      the operation of the FEC Framework.







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   FEC Payload ID:  Information which identifies the contents of a
      packet with respect to the FEC Scheme.

   Source FEC Payload ID:  An FEC Payload ID specifically for use with
      source packets.

   Repair FEC Payload ID:  An FEC Payload ID specifically for use with
      repair packets.

   Content Delivery Protocol (CDP):  A complete application protocol
      specification which, through the use of the framework defined in
      this document, is able to make use of FEC Schemes to provide
      Forward Error Correction capabilities.






































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3.  Requirements notation

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].














































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4.  Architecture Overview

   The FEC Framework is described in terms of an additional layer
   between the transport layer (e.g.  UDP or DCCP) and protocols running
   over this transport layer.  Examples of such protocols are RTP, RTCP,
   etc.  As such, the data path interface between the FEC Framework and
   both underlying and overlying layers can be thought of as being the
   same as the standard interface to the transport layer - i.e. the data
   exchanged consists of datagram payloads each associated with a single
   transport flow identified (in the case of UDP) by the standard
   5-tuple { Source IP Address, Source Transport Port, Destination IP
   Address, Destination Transport Port, Transport Protocol }.  In the
   case that RTP is used for the repair flows, the source and repair
   data may be multiplexed using RTP onto a single UDP flow and must
   consequently be demultiplexed at the receiver.  There are various
   ways in which this multiplexing can be done, for example as described
   in [RFC4588].  In this case the interface to the FEC Framework, at
   least for the repair flows, can be thought of as equivalent to that
   between RTP and users of RTP.

   It is important to understand that the main purpose of the FEC
   Framework architecture is to allocate fuctional responsibilities to
   separately documented components in such a way that specific
   instances of the components can be combined in different ways to
   describe different protocols.

   The FEC Framework makes use of an FEC Scheme, in a similar sense to
   that defined in [RFC5052] and uses the terminology of that document.
   The FEC Scheme defines the FEC encoding and decoding and defines the
   protocol fields and procedures used to identify packet payload data
   in the context of the FEC Scheme.  The interface between the FEC
   Framework and an FEC Scheme, which is described in this document, is
   a logical one, which exists for specification purposes only.  At an
   encoder, the FEC Framework passes groups of transport packet payloads
   to the FEC Scheme for FEC Encoding.  The FEC Scheme returns FEC
   repair packet payloads, encoded FEC Payload ID information for each
   of the repair packets and, in some cases, encoded FEC Payload ID
   information for each of the source packets.  At a decoder, the FEC
   Framework passes transport packet payloads (source and repair) to the
   FEC Scheme and the FEC Scheme returns additional recovered source
   packet payloads.

   This document defines certain FEC Framework Configuration Information
   which MUST be available to both sender and receiver(s).  For example,
   this information includes the specification of the transport flows
   which are to be FEC protected, specification of the transport flow(s)
   which will carry the FEC protection (repair) data and the
   relationship(s) between these 'source' and 'repair' flows (i.e. which



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   source flow(s) are protected by each repair flow.  The FEC Framework
   Configuration Information also includes information fields which are
   specific to the FEC Scheme.  This information is analagous to the FEC
   Object Transmission Information defined in [RFC5052].

   The FEC Framework does not define how the FEC Framework Configuration
   Information for the stream is communicated from sender to receiver.
   This must be defined by any Content Delivery Protocol specification
   as described in the following sections.

   In this architecture we assume that the interface to the transport
   layer supports the concepts of payloads to be transported and
   identification of transport flows on which those payloads are
   transported.  Since this is an interface internal to the
   architecture, we do not specify this interface explicitly, except to
   say that transport flows which are distinct from the transport layer
   point of view (for example, distinct UDP flows as identified by the
   UDP source/destination ports/addresses) are also distinct on the
   interface between the transport layer and the FEC Framework.

   As noted above, RTP flows are a specific example of transport flows
   which might be protected by the FEC Framework.  From the FEC
   Framework point of view, RTP source flows are sequences of UDP packet
   payloads like any other protocol over UDP.

   Depending on the FEC Scheme, RTP may also be used as a transport for
   repair packet flows.  In this case an FEC Scheme must define an RTP
   Payload Format for the repair data.

   The architecture outlined above is illustrated in the Figure 1.  In
   this architecture, two RTP instances are shown, for the source and
   repair data respectively.  This is because the use of RTP for the
   source data is separate from and independent of the use of RTP for
   the repair data.  The appearance of two RTP instances is more natural
   when you consider that in many FEC codes, the the repair payload
   contains parity bytes calculated across the RTP headers of the source
   packets.  Thus a repair packet carried over RTP starts with an RTP
   header of its own which is immediately followed by parity data
   containing bytes which protect the source RTP headers (as well as
   parity data for the source RTP payloads).











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   +--------------------------------------------+
   |                 Application                |
   +--------------------------------------------+
                          |
                          |
                          |
 + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+
 | +--------------------------------------------+ |
   |            Application Layer               |
 | +--------------------------------------------+ |
                        |                  |
 | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+     |      |
   |  RTP                            |     |
 | |                                 |     |-Configuration/Coordination
   +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+     |
 |                    |                    |      |
                      | Transport flows    |
 |                    |                    v      |
   +--------------------------------------------+     +----------------+
 | |      FEC Framework (this document)         |<--->|   FEC Scheme   |
   +--------------------------------------------+     +----------------+
 |                |               |               |
           Source |        Repair |
 |                |               |               |
   +-- -- -- -- --|-- --+ -- -- -- -- -- + -- --+
 | |  RTP         |     | RTP processing |      |<--- Optional
   |              |     +-- -- -- |- -- -+      |       - dependent on
 | |        +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- |--+          | |       FEC Scheme
   |        |  RTP (de)multiplexing  |          |
 | +-- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ |
                        |
 | +--------------------------------------------+ |
   |          Transport Layer (e.g. UDP)        |
 | +--------------------------------------------+ |
                        |
 | +--------------------------------------------+ |
   |                  IP                        |
 | +--------------------------------------------+ |
  Content Delivery Protocol
 + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - +

                   Figure 1: FEC Framework Architecture

   The contents of the transport payload for repair packets is fully
   defined by the FEC Scheme.  For a specific FEC Scheme, a means MAY be
   defined for repair data to be carried over RTP, in which case the
   repair packet payload format starts with the RTP header.  This
   corresponds to defining an RTP Payload Format for the specific FEC



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   Scheme.  Guidelines for writers of RTP Payload Formats are provided
   in [RFC2736].

   The use of RTP for repair packets is independent of the protocols
   used for source packets: if RTP is used for source packets then
   repair packets may or may not use RTP and vice versa (although it is
   unlikely that there are useful scenarios where non-RTP source flows
   are protected by RTP repair flows).  FEC Schemes are expected to
   recover entire transport payloads for recovered source packets in all
   cases.  For example if RTP is used for source flows, the FEC Scheme
   is expected to recover the entire UDP payload, including the RTP
   header.







































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5.  Procedural overview

5.1.  General

   The mechanism defined in this document does not place any
   restrictions on the source transport payloads which can be protected
   together, except that the source transport payload is carried over a
   supported transport protocol (See Section 8).  The data may be from
   multiple transport flows that are protected jointly.  The FEC
   framework handles the packet flows as a sequence of 'source blocks'
   each consisting of a set of source transport payloads, possibly from
   multiple flows which are to be protected together.  For example, each
   source block may be constructed from those source transport payloads
   related to a particular segment in time of the flow.

   At the sender, the FEC Framework passes the payloads for a given
   block to the FEC Scheme for FEC encoding.  The FEC Scheme performs
   the FEC encoding operation and returns the following information:

   o  optionally, encoded FEC Payload IDs for each of the source
      payloads

   o  one or more FEC repair packet payloads

   o  encoded FEC Payload IDs for each of the repair packet payloads

   The FEC framework then performs two operations: Firstly, it appends
   the FEC payload IDs, if provided, to each of the source transport
   payloads, and sends the resulting packets, known as 'FEC source
   packets', to the receiver and secondly it places the provided 'FEC
   repair packet payloads' and corresponding 'FEC Repair Payload IDs'
   appropriately to construct 'FEC repair packets' and send them to the
   receiver.  Note that FEC repair packets MAY be sent to a different
   multicast group or groups from the source packets.

   This document does not define how the sender determines which source
   transport payloads are included in which source blocks or the sending
   order and timing of FEC source and FEC repair packets.  A specific
   Content Delivery Protocol MAY define this mapping or it MAY be left
   as implementation dependent at the sender.  However, a CDP
   specification MUST define how a receiver determines the length of
   time it should wait to receive FEC repair packets for any given
   source block.  The sequence of operations at the sender is described
   in more detail in Section 5.2.

   At the receiver, original source transport payloads are recovered by
   the FEC Framework directly from any FEC Source packets received
   simply by removing the Source FEC Payload ID, if present.  The



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   receiver also passes the contents of the received FEC Source
   transport payloads, plus their FEC Payload IDs to the FEC Scheme for
   possible decoding.

   If any FEC source transport payloads related to a given source block
   have been lost, then the FEC Scheme may perform FEC decoding to
   recover the missing source transport payloads (assuming sufficient
   FEC Source and FEC Repair packets related to that source block have
   been received).

   Note that the receiver may need to buffer received source packets to
   allow time for the FEC Repair packets to arrive and FEC decoding to
   be performed before some or all of the received or recovered packets
   are passed to the application.  If such a buffer is not provided,
   then the application must be able to deal with the severe re-ordering
   of packets that will be required.  However, such buffering is Content
   Delivery Protocol and/or implementation-specific and is not specified
   here.  The receiver operation is described in more detail in
   Section 5.3

   The FEC Source packets MUST contain information which identifies the
   source block and the position within the source block (in terms
   specific to the FEC Scheme) occupied by the packet.  This information
   is known as the 'Source FEC Payload ID'.  The FEC Scheme is
   responsible for defining and interpreting this information.  This
   information MAY be encoded into a specific field within the FEC
   Source packet format defined in this specification, called the
   Explicit Source FEC Payload ID field.  The exact contents and format
   of the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID field are defined by the FEC
   Scheme.  Alternatively, the FEC Scheme MAY define how the Source FEC
   Payload ID is derived from other fields within the source packets.
   This document defines the way that the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID
   field is appended to source packets to form FEC Source packets.

   The FEC Repair packets MUST contain information which identifies the
   source block and the relationship between the contained repair
   payloads and the original source block.  This is known as the 'Repair
   FEC Payload ID'.  This information MUST be encoded into a specific
   field, the Repair FEC Payload ID field, the contents and format of
   which are defined by the FEC Scheme.

   The FEC Scheme MAY use different FEC Payload ID field formats for FEC
   Source packets and FEC Repair packets.

5.2.  Sender Operation

   It is assumed that the sender has constructed or received original
   data packets for the session.  These may be RTP, RTCP, MIKEY or



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   indeed any other type of packet.  The following operations,
   illustrated in Figure 2, for the case of UDP repair flows and
   Figure 3 for the case of RTP repair flows, describe a possible way to
   generate compliant FEC Source packet and FEC repair packet streams:

      1.  Source transport payloads are provided by the application.

      2.  A source block is constructed as specified in Section 6.2.

      3.  The source block is passed to the FEC Scheme for FEC encoding.
      The Source FEC Payload ID information of each Source packet is
      determined by the FEC Scheme.  If required by the FEC Scheme the
      Source FEC Payload ID is encoded into the Explicit Source FEC
      Payload ID field.

      4.  The FEC Scheme performs FEC Encoding, generating repair packet
      payloads from a source block and a Repair FEC Payload ID field for
      each repair payload.

      5.  The Explicit Source FEC Payload IDs (if used), Repair FEC
      Payload IDs and repair packet payloads are provided back from the
      FEC Scheme to the FEC Framework.

      6.  The FEC Framework constructs FEC Source packets according to
      Section 6.3 and FEC Repair packets according to Section 6.4

      using the FEC Payload IDs and repair packet payloads provided by
      the FEC Scheme.

      7.  The FEC Source and FEC Repair packets are sent using normal
      transport layer procedures.  The port(s) and multicast group(s) to
      be used for FEC Repair packets are defined in the FEC Framework
      Configuration Information.  The FEC Source packets are sent using
      the same transport flow identification information as would have
      been used for the original source packets if the FEC Framework
      were not present (for example, in the UDP case, the UDP source and
      destination addresses and ports on the eventual IP FEC Source
      Packet will be the same whether or not the FEC Framework is
      applied).












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  +----------------------+
  |     Application      |
  +----------------------+
             |
             | (1) Source transport payloads
             |
             v
  +----------------------+                           +------------------+
  |    FEC Framework     |                           |                  |
  |                      |-------------------------->|   FEC Scheme     |
  |(2) Construct source  |   (3) Source Block        |                  |
  |    blocks            |                           | (4) FEC Encoding |
  |(6) Construct FEC src |<--------------------------|                  |
  |    packets and FEC   |                           |                  |
  |    repair packets    |(5) Ex src FEC Payload Ids,|                  |
  +----------------------+    Repair FEC Payload Ids,+------------------+
             |                Repair transport payloads
             |
             | (7) FEC Source packets and FEC repair packets
             v
  +----------------------+
  |   Transport Layer    |
  |     (e.g. UDP )      |
  +----------------------+

                        Figure 2: Sender operation

























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  +----------------------+
  |     Application      |
  +----------------------+
             |
             | (1) Source UDP payloads
             v
  +----------------------+                           +------------------+
  |    FEC Framework     |                           |                  |
  |                      |-------------------------->|   FEC Scheme     |
  |(2) Construct source  |    (3) Source Block       |                  |
  |    blocks            |                           | (4) FEC Encoding |
  |(6) Construct FEC src |<--------------------------|                  |
  |    packets and FEC   |                           |                  |
  |    repair packets    |(5) Ex src FEC Payload Ids,|                  |
  +----------------------+    Repair FEC Payload Ids,+------------------+
      |             |         Repair RTP payloads
      |(7) Source   |
      |             |(7') Repair RTP payloads
      |   + -- -- -- -- -+
      |   |     RTP      |
      |   +-- -- -- -- --+
      v             v
  +----------------------+
  |   Transport Layer    |
  |     (e.g. UDP )      |
  +----------------------+

             Figure 3: Sender operation with RTP repair flows

5.3.  Receiver Operation

   The following describes a possible receiver algorithm, illustrated in
   Figure 4 and Figure 5 for the case of RTP repair flows, when
   receiving an FEC source or repair packet:

      1.  FEC Source Packets and FEC Repair packets are received and
      passed to the FEC Framework.  The type of packet (Source or
      Repair) and the transport flow to which it belongs (in the case of
      source packets ) is indicated by the transport flow information
      which identifies the flow at the transport layer (for example
      source and destination ports and addresses in the case of UDP).

      1a.  In the special case that RTP is used for repair packets and
      source and repair packets are multiplexed onto the same UDP flow,
      then RTP demultiplexing is required to demultiplex source and
      repair flows.  However, RTP processing is applied only to the
      repair packets at this stage: source packets continue to be
      handled as UDP payloads (i.e. including their RTP headers).



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      2.  The FEC Framework extracts the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID
      field (if present) from FEC Source Packets and the Repair FEC
      Payload ID from FEC Repair Packets.

      3.  The Explicit Source FEC Payload IDs (if present), Repair FEC
      Payload IDs, FEC Source payloads and FEC Repair payloads are
      passed to the FEC Scheme.

      4.  The FEC Scheme uses the received FEC Payload IDs (and derived
      FEC Source Payload IDs in the case that the Explicit Source FEC
      Payload ID field is not used) to group source and repair packets
      into source blocks.  If at least one source packet is missing from
      a source block, and at least one repair packet has been received
      for the same source block then FEC decoding may be performed in
      order to recover missing source payloads.  The FEC Scheme
      determines whether source packets have been lost and whether
      enough data for decoding of any or all of the missing source
      payloads in the source block has been received.

      5.  The FEC Scheme returns the source transport payload to the FEC
      Framework in the form of source blocks containing received and
      decoded source packets and indications of any source packets which
      were missing and could not be decoded.

      6.  The FEC Framework passes the received and recovered source
      packet payloads to the application.

























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  +----------------------+
  |     Application      |
  +----------------------+
             ^
             | (6) Source transport payloads
             |
  +----------------------+                            +------------------+
  |   FEC Framework      |                            |                  |
  |                      |<---------------------------|   FEC Scheme     |
  |(2)Extract FEC Payload| (5) Source Transport       |                  |
  |   IDs and pass IDs & |     Payloads               | (4) FEC Decoding |
  |   Payloads to FEC    |--------------------------->|                  |
  |   Scheme             | (3) Ex src FEC Payload IDs,|                  |
  +----------------------+     FEC Repair Payload IDs,+------------------+
             ^                 FEC Source Payloads,
             |                 FEC Repair Payloads
             |
             | (1) FEC Source packets and FEC repair packets
             |
  +----------------------+
  |   Transport Layer    |
  |     (e.g. UDP )      |
  +----------------------+

                       Figure 4: Receiver Operation


























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  +----------------------+
  |     Application      |
  +----------------------+
             ^
             | (6) Source UDP payloads
             |
  +----------------------+                            +------------------+
  |   FEC Framework      |                            |                  |
  |                      |<---------------------------|   FEC Scheme     |
  |(2)Extract FEC Payload| (5) Source Transport       |                  |
  |   IDs and pass IDs & |     Payloads               | (4) FEC Decoding |
  |   Payloads to FEC    |--------------------------->|                  |
  |   Scheme             | (3) Ex src FEC Payload IDs,|                  |
  +----------------------+     FEC Repair Payload IDs,+------------------+
      ^             ^          FEC Source Payloads,
      |             |          FEC Repair Payloads
      |Source pkts  |
      |             |(1a) FEC repair payloads
  +-- |- -- -- -- -- -- -+
  |RTP| | RTP processing |
  |   | +-- -- -- --|-- -+
  | +-- -- -- -- -- |--+ |
  | | RTP demux        | |
  +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+
             |  (1) FEC Source packets and FEC repair packets
  +----------------------+
  |   Transport Layer    |
  |     (e.g. UDP )      |
  +----------------------+

                       Figure 5: Receiver Operation

   Note that the above procedure may result in a situation in which not
   all original source packets are recovered.

   Source packets which are correctly received and those which are
   reconstructed MAY be delivered to the application out of order and in
   a different order from the order of arrival at the receiver.
   Alternatively, buffering and packet re-ordering MAY be required to
   re-order received and reconstructed source packets into the order
   they were placed into the source block, if that is necessary
   according to the application.









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6.  Protocol Specification

6.1.  General

   This section specifies the protocol elements for the FEC Framework.
   Three components of the protocol are defined in this document and are
   described in the following sections:

      1.  Construction of a source block from source payloads.  The FEC
      code will be applied to this source block to produce the repair
      payloads.

      2.  A format for packets containing source data.

      3.  A format for packets containing repair data.

   The operation of the FEC Framework is governed by certain FEC
   Framework Configuation Information.  This configuration information
   is also defined in this section.  A complete protocol specification
   that uses this framework MUST specify the means to determine and
   communicate this information between sender and receiver.

6.2.  Structure of the source block

   The FEC Framework and FEC Scheme exchange source transport payload in
   the form of source blocks.  A source block is generated by the FEC
   Framework from an ordered sequence of source transport payloads.  The
   allocation of transport payloads to blocks is dependent on the
   application.  Note that some source transport payloads may not be
   included in any block.  For each source transport payload included in
   a source block, the following information is provided to the FEC
   Scheme:

   o  A description of the source transport flow with which the
      transport payload is associated (See 6.5)

   o  The source transport payload itself

   o  The length of the source transport payload

6.3.  Packet format for FEC Source packets

   The packet format for FEC Source packets MUST be used to transport
   the payload of an original source packet.  As depicted in Figure 6,
   it consists of the original packet, optionally followed by the
   Explicit Source FEC Payload ID field.  The FEC Scheme determines
   whether the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID field is required.  This
   determination is specific to each transport flow.



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   +------------------------------------+
   |             IP header              |
   +------------------------------------+
   |          Transport header          |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     Original transport Payload     |
   +------------------------------------+
   |   Explicit Source FEC Payload ID   |
   +------------------------------------+

    Figure 6: Structure of the FEC packet format for FEC Source packets

   The FEC Source packets MUST be sent using the same transport flow as
   would have been used for the original source packets if the FEC
   Framework were not present.  The Original transport Payload field
   MUST be identical to the source transport payload.  The transport
   payload of the FEC Source packet MUST consist of the Original
   Transport Payload followed by the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID
   field, if required.

   The Explicit Source FEC Payload ID field contains information
   required to associate the source packet with a source block and for
   the operation of the FEC algorithm and is defined by the FEC Scheme.
   The format of the Source FEC Payload ID field is defined by the FEC
   Scheme.  Note that in the case that the FEC Scheme or CDP defines a
   means to derive the Source FEC Payload ID from other information in
   the packet (for example the a sequence number of some kind used by
   the application protocol), then the Source FEC Payload ID field is
   not included in the packet.  In this case the original source packet
   and FEC Source Packet are identical.

   Since the addition of the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID increases
   the packet length, then in applications where avoidance of IP packet
   fragmentation is a goal, Content Delivery Protocols SHOULD consider
   the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID size when determining the size of
   source transport payloads that will be delivered using the FEC
   Framework.

   Note: The Explicit Source FEC Payload ID is placed at the end of the
   packet so that in the case that Robust Header Compression [RFC3095]
   or other header compression mechanisms are used and in the case that
   a ROHC profile is defined for the protocol carried within the
   transport payload (for example RTP), then ROHC will still be applied
   for the FEC Source packets.  Applications that may be used with this
   Framework should consider that FEC Schemes may add this Explicit
   Source FEC Payload ID and thereby increase the packet size.





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6.3.1.  Generic Explicit Source FEC Payload Id

   In order to apply FEC protection using multiple FEC Schemes to a
   single source flow all schemes must use the same Explicit Source FEC
   Payload Id format.  In order to enable this, it is RECOMMENDED that
   FEC Schemes support the Generic Explicit Source FEC Payload Id format
   described below.

   The Generic Explicit Source FEC Payload Id has length 2 bytes and
   consists of an unsigned packet sequence number in network byte order.
   Source packets SHALL be allocated sequence numbers such that source
   packets which are protected in a single FEC block have consecutive
   sequence numbers (where consecutive includes wrap-around from 65535
   to 0).  Sequence numbers SHOULD NOT be reused until all values in the
   sequence nmber space have been used.

6.4.  Packet Format for FEC Repair packets

   The packet format for FEC Repair packets is shown in Figure 7.  The
   transport payload consists of a Repair FEC Payload ID field followed
   by repair data generated in the FEC encoding process.

   +------------------------------------+
   |             IP header              |
   +------------------------------------+
   |          Transport header          |
   +------------------------------------+
   |       Repair FEC Payload ID        |
   +------------------------------------+
   |          Repair Symbols            |
   +------------------------------------+

                Figure 7: Packet format for repair packets

   The Repair FEC Payload ID field contains information required for the
   operation of the FEC algorithm at the receiver.  This information is
   defined by the FEC Scheme.  The format of the Repair FEC Payload ID
   field is defined by the FEC Scheme.

6.4.1.  Packet Format for FEC Repair packets over RTP

   For FEC Schemes which specify the use of RTP for repair packets, the
   packet format for repair packets includes an RTP header as shown in
   Figure 8.







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   +------------------------------------+
   |             IP header              |
   +------------------------------------+
   |      Transport header (UDP)        |
   +------------------------------------+
   |             RTP Header             |
   +------------------------------------+
   |       Repair FEC Payload ID        |
   +------------------------------------+
   |          Repair Symbols            |
   +------------------------------------+

                Figure 8: Packet format for repair packets

6.5.  FEC Framework Configuration Information

   The FEC Framework Configuration Information is information that the
   FEC Framework needs in order to apply FEC protection to the transport
   flows.  A complete Content Delivery Protocol specification that uses
   the framework specified here MUST include details of how this
   information is derived and communicated between sender and receiver.

   The FEC Framework Configuration Information includes identification
   of a set of source packet flows.  For example, in the case of UDP,
   each packet flow is uniquely identified by a tuple { Source IP
   Address, Destination IP Address, Source UDP port, Destination UDP
   port }.  Note that in some applications some of these fields may be
   wildcarded, so that the flow is identified by a subset of the fields
   and in particular in many applications the limited tuple {
   Destination IP Address, Destination UDP port } is sufficient.

   A single instance of the FEC Framework provides FEC protection for
   all packets of a specified set of source packet flows, by means of
   one or more packet flows consisting of repair packets.  The FEC
   Framework Configuation Information includes, for each instance of the
   FEC Framework:

      1.  Identification of the packet flow(s) carrying FEC Repair
      packets, known as the FEC repair flow(s).

      2.  For each source packet flow protected by the FEC repair
      flow(s):

         a.  Defintion of the packet flow carrying source packets (for
         example, by means of a tuple as describe above for UDP).

         b.  An integer identifier for this flow definition (i.e.
         tuple).  This identifier MUST be unique amongst all source



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         packet flows which are protected by the same FEC repair flow.

      3.  The FEC Encoding ID, identifying the FEC Scheme

      4.  The length of the Explicit Source FEC Payload Id, in bytes

      5.  An opaque container for FEC-Scheme-specific information

   Multiple instances of the FEC Framework, with separate and
   independent FEC Framework Configuration Information, may be present
   at a sender or receiver.  A single instance of the FEC Framework
   protects all packets of all the source packet flows identified in (2)
   above i.e. all packets sent on those flows MUST be FEC Source packets
   as defined in Section 6.3.  A single source packet flow may be
   protected by multiple instances of the FEC Framework.

   The integer flow identifier identified in 2(b) is a "shorthand" to
   identify source flows between the FEC Framework and the FEC Scheme.
   The reason for defining this as an integer, and including it in the
   FEC Framework Configuration Information is so that the FEC Scheme at
   the sender and receiver may use it to identify the source flow with
   which a recovered packet is associated.  The integer flow identifier
   may therefore take the place of the complete flow description (e.g.
   UDP 4-tuple).

   Whether and how this flow identifier is used is defined by the FEC
   Scheme.  Since source packets are directly associated with a flow by
   virtue of their packet headers, this identifier need not be carried
   in source packets.  Since repair packets may provide protection for
   multiple source flows, this flow identifier would likely not be
   carried directly in repair packets.  However, the flow identifier
   associated with a particular source packet may be recovered from the
   repair packets as part of an FEC decoding operation.  Integer flow
   identifiers SHOULD be allocated starting from zero and increasing by
   one for each flow.

   A single FEC repair flow provides repair packets for a single
   instance of the FEC Framework.  Other packets MUST NOT be sent within
   this flow i.e. all packets in the FEC repair flow MUST be FEC repair
   packets as defined in Section 6.4 and MUST relate to the same FEC
   Framework instance.

   In the case that RTP is used for repair packets, the identification
   of the repair packet flow MAY also include the RTP Payload Type to be
   used for repair packets.






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6.6.  FEC Scheme requirements

   In order to be used with this framework, an FEC Scheme MUST be
   capable of processing data arranged into blocks of source transport
   packet payloads (source blocks).

   A specification for a new FEC scheme MUST include the following
   things:

   1.  The FEC Encoding ID value that uniquely identifies the FEC
       scheme.  This value MUST be registered with IANA as described in
       Section 11.

   2.  The type, semantics and encoding format of the Repair FEC Payload
       ID.

   3.  The type, semantics and encoding format of the FEC Scheme-
       specific FEC Framework Configuration Information.

   4.  A full specification of the FEC code.

       This specification MUST precisely define the valid FEC-Scheme-
       Specific FEC Framework Configuration Information values, the
       valid FEC Payload ID values and the valid packet payload sizes
       (where packet payload refers to the space - not necessarily
       contiguous - within a packet dedicated to carrying encoding
       symbol bytes).

       Furthermore, given a source block as defined in Section 6.2,
       valid values of the FEC-Scheme-Specific FEC Framework
       Configuration Information, a valid Repair FEC Payload ID value
       and a valid packet payload size, the specification MUST uniquely
       define the values of the encoding symbol bytes to be included in
       the repair packet payload of a packet with the given Repair FEC
       Payload ID value.

       A common and simple way to specify the FEC code to the required
       level of detail is to provide a precise specification of an
       encoding algorithm which, given a source block, valid values of
       the FEC-Scheme-Specific FEC Framework Configuration Information,
       a valid Repair FEC Payload ID value and a valid packet payload
       size as input produces the exact value of the encoding symbol
       bytes as output.

   5.  A description of practical encoding and decoding algorithms.

       This description need not be to the same level of detail as for
       the encoding above, however it must be sufficient to demonstrate



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       that encoding and decoding of the code is both possible and
       practical.

   FEC scheme specifications MAY additionally define the following:

   1.  Type, semantics and encoding format of an Explicit Source FEC
       Payload ID.

   Whenever an FEC scheme specification defines an 'encoding format' for
   an element, this must be defined in terms of a sequence of bytes
   which can be embedded within a protocol.  The length of the encoding
   format MUST either be fixed or it must be possible to derive the
   length from examining the encoded bytes themselves.  For example, the
   initial bytes may include some kind of length indication.

   FEC scheme specifications SHOULD use the terminology defined in this
   document and SHOULD follow the following format:

   1. Introduction  <describe the use-cases addressed by this FEC
      scheme>


   2. Formats and Codes

      2.1 Source FEC Payload ID(s)  <Either, define the type and format
         of the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID, or define how Source FEC
         Payload ID information is derived from source packets>


      2.2 Repair FEC Payload Id  <Define the type and format of the
         Repair FEC Payload ID>

      2.3 FEC Framework Configuration Information  <Define the type and
         format of the FEC Scheme-specific FEC Framework configuration
         information>

   3. Procedures  <describe any procedures which are specific to this
      FEC scheme, in particular derivation and interpretation of the
      fields in the FEC Payload ID and FEC Scheme-specific FEC Framework
      configuration information.>

   4. FEC code specification  <provide a complete specification of the
      FEC Code>

   Specifications MAY include additional sections, for example,
   examples.

   Each FEC scheme MUST be specified independently of all other FEC



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   schemes; for example, in a separate specification or a completely
   independent section of larger specification (except, of course, a
   specification of one FEC Scheme may include portions of another by
   reference).

   Where an RTP Payload Format is defined for repair data for a specific
   FEC Scheme, the RTP Payload Format and the FEC Scheme MAY be
   specified within the same document.











































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7.  Feedback

   Many applications require some kind of feedback on transport
   performance: how much data arrived at the receiver, at what rate,
   when etc.  When FEC is added to such applications, feedback
   mechanisms may also need to be enhanced to report on the performance
   of the FEC (for example how much lost data was recovered by the FEC).

   When used to provide instrumentation for engineering purposes, it is
   important to remember that FEC is generally applied to relatively
   small blocks of data (in time) and so feedback information averaged
   over longer periods of time than the FEC block size will likely not
   provide sufficient information for engineering purposes.  For example
   see [I-D.ietf-avt-post-repair-rtcp-xr].

   New applications which require such feedback SHOULD use RTP/RTCP
   [RFC3550].


































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8.  Transport Protocols

   The following transport protocols are supported:

   o  User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

   o  Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP)

      Editor's note: This section will contain transport-specific
      considerations, if any.









































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9.  Congestion Control

   This section starts with a informative section on the motivation of
   the normative requirements for congestion control, which are spelled
   out in Section 9.1.

      Informative Note: The enforcement of Congestion Control (CC)
      principles has gained a lot of momentum in the IETF over the
      recent years.  While the need of CC over the open Internet is
      unquestioned, and the goal of TCP friendliness is generally agreed
      for most (but not all) applications, the subject of congestion
      detection and measurement in heterogenous networks can hardly be
      considered as solved.  Most congestion control algorithms detect
      and measure congestion by taking (primarily or exclusively) the
      packet loss rate into account.  This appears to be inappropriate
      in environments where a large percentage of the packet losses are
      the result link-layer errors and independent of the network load.
      Note that such environments exist in the "open Internet", as well
      as in "closed" IP based networks.  An example for the former would
      be the use of IP/UDP/RTP based streaming from an Internet-
      connected streaming server to a device attached to the Internet
      using cellular technology.

      The authors of this draft are primarily interested in applications
      where the application reliability requirements and end-to-end
      reliability of the network differ, such that it warrants higher
      layer protection of the packet stream - for example due to the
      presence of unreliable links in the end-to-end path - and where
      real-time, scalability or other constraints prohibit the use of
      higher layer (transport or application) feedback.  A typical
      example for such applications is multicast and broadcast streaming
      or multimedia transmission over heterogenous networks.  In other
      cases, application reliability requirements may be so high that
      the required end-to-end reliability is difficult to achieve even
      over wired networks.  Furthermore the end-to-end network
      reliability may not be known in advance.

      This FEC framework is not proposed, nor intended, as a QoS
      enhancement tool to combat losses resulting from highly congested
      networks.  It should not be used for such purposes.

      In order to prevent such mis-use, one approach would be to leave
      standardisation to bodies most concerned with the problem
      described above.  However, the IETF defines base standards used by
      several bodies, including DVB, 3GPP, 3GPP2, all of which appear to
      share the environment and the problem described.





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      Another approach would be to write a clear applicability statement
      - for example restricting use of the framework to networks with
      wireless links.  However, there may be applications where the use
      of FEC may be justified to combat congestion-induced packet losses
      - particularly in lightly loaded networks, where congestion is the
      result of relatively rare random peaks in instantaneous traffic
      load - thereby intentionally violating congestion control
      principles.  One possible example for such an application could be
      a no-matter-what, brute-force FEC protection of traffic generated
      as an emergency signal.

      We propose a third approach, which is to require at a minimum that
      the use of this framework with any given application, in any given
      environment, does not cause congestion issues which the
      application alone would not itself cause i.e. the use of this
      framework must not make things worse.

      Taking above considerations into account, the normative text of
      this section implements a small set of constraints for the FEC,
      which are mandatory for all senders compliant with this FEC
      framework.  Further restrictions may be imposed for certain
      Content Delivery Protocols.  In this it follows the spirit of the
      congestion control section of RTP and its Audio-Visual Profile
      (RFC3550/STD64 and RFC3551/STD65).

      One of the constraints effectively limits the bandwidth for the
      FEC protected packet stream to be no more than roughly twice as
      high as the original, non-FEC protected packet stream.  This
      disallows the (static or dynamic) use of excessively strong FEC to
      combat high packet loss rates, which may otherwise be chosen by
      naively implemented dynamic FEC-strength selection mechanisms.  We
      acknowledge that there may be a few exotic applications, e.g.  IP
      traffic from space-based senders, or senders in certain hardened
      military devices, which would warrant a higher FEC strength.
      However, in this specification we give preference to the overall
      stability and network friendliness of the average application, and
      for those a factor of 2 appears to be appropriate.

      A second constraint requires that the FEC protected packet stream
      be in compliance with the congestion control in use for the
      application and network in question.

9.1.  Normative requirements

   The bandwidth of FEC Repair packet flows MUST NOT exceed the
   bandwidth of the source packet flows being protected.  In addition,
   whenever the source packet flow bandwidth is adapted due to the
   operation of congestion control mechanisms, the FEC repair packet



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   flow bandwidth MUST be similarly adapted.


















































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10.  Security Considerations

   The application of FEC protection to a stream does not provide any
   kind of security protection.

   If security services are required for the stream, then they MUST
   either be applied to the original source transport payload before FEC
   protection is applied, or to both the source and repair data, after
   FEC protection has been applied.

   If integrity protection is applied to source packets before FEC
   protection is applied, and no further integrity protection is applied
   to repair packets, then a denial of service attack is possible if an
   attacker is in a position to inject fake repair transport payloads.
   If received by a receiver, such fake repair transport payloads could
   cause incorrect FEC decoding resulting in incorrect source transport
   payloads being passed up to the application protocol.  Such incorrect
   packets would then be detected by the source integrity protection and
   discarded, resulting in partial or complete denial of service.
   Therefore, in such environments, integrity protection MUST also be
   applied to the FEC repair transport payloads, for example using
   IPsec.  Receivers MUST also verify the integrity of source transport
   payloads before including the source transport payload into the
   source block for FEC purposes.

   It is possible that multiple streams with different confidentiality
   requirements (for example, the streams may be visible to different
   sets of users) can be FEC protected by a single repair stream.  This
   scenario is not recommended, since resources will be used to
   distribute and decode data which cannot then be decrypted by at least
   some receivers.  However, in this scenario, confidentiality
   protection MUST be applied before FEC encoding of the streams,
   otherwise repair transport payload may be used by a receiver to
   decode unencrypted versions of source streams which they do not have
   permissionions to view.
















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11.  IANA Considerations

   tbd
















































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12.  Acknowledgments

   This document is based in large part on [I-D.watson-tsvwg-fec-sf] and
   so thanks are due to the additional authors of that document, Mike
   Luby, Magnus Westerlund and Stephan Wenger.  That document was in
   turn based on the FEC streaming protocol defined by 3GPP in [MBMSTS]
   and thus thanks are also due to the participants in 3GPP TSG SA
   working group 4.











































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13.  References

13.1.  Normative references

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3095]  Bormann, C., Burmeister, C., Degermark, M., Fukushima, H.,
              Hannu, H., Jonsson, L-E., Hakenberg, R., Koren, T., Le,
              K., Liu, Z., Martensson, A., Miyazaki, A., Svanbro, K.,
              Wiebke, T., Yoshimura, T., and H. Zheng, "RObust Header
              Compression (ROHC): Framework and four profiles: RTP, UDP,
              ESP, and uncompressed", RFC 3095, July 2001.

   [RFC5052]  Watson, M., Luby, M., and L. Vicisano, "Forward Error
              Correction (FEC) Building Block", RFC 5052, August 2007.

   [RFC3550]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
              Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
              Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, July 2003.

13.2.  Informative references

   [I-D.watson-tsvwg-fec-sf]
              Watson, M., "Forward Error Correction (FEC) Streaming
              Framework", draft-watson-tsvwg-fec-sf-00 (work in
              progress), July 2005.

   [I-D.ietf-avt-post-repair-rtcp-xr]
              Begen, A., Hsu, D., and M. Lague, "Post-Repair Loss RLE
              Report Block Type for RTCP XR",
              draft-ietf-avt-post-repair-rtcp-xr-03 (work in progress),
              October 2008.

   [RFC4588]  Rey, J., Leon, D., Miyazaki, A., Varsa, V., and R.
              Hakenberg, "RTP Retransmission Payload Format", RFC 4588,
              July 2006.

   [RFC2736]  Handley, M. and C. Perkins, "Guidelines for Writers of RTP
              Payload Format Specifications", BCP 36, RFC 2736,
              December 1999.

   [MBMSTS]   3GPP, "Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS);
              Protocols and codecs", 3GPP TS 26.346, April 2005.







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Author's Address

   Mark Watson
   Digital Fountain
   39141 Civic Center Drive
   Suite 300
   Fremont, CA  94538
   U.S.A.

   Email: mark@digitalfountain.com









































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