Reliable Multicast Transport                                   M. Watson
Internet-Draft                                          Digital Fountain
Expires: January 14, 2006                                  July 13, 2005


              Basic Forward Error Correction (FEC) Schemes
             draft-ietf-rmt-bb-fec-basic-schemes-revised-00

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

   This document provides FEC Scheme specifications according to the RMT
   FEC Building Block for the Compact No-Code FEC Scheme, the Small
   Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC Scheme, the Small Block
   Systematic FEC Scheme and the Compact FEC Scheme.








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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Requirements notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Compact No-Code FEC Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     3.1   Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     3.2   Formats and Codes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       3.2.1   FEC Payload ID(s)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       3.2.2   FEC Object Transmission Information  . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.3   Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.4   FEC code specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.4.1   Source Block Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.4.2   Sending and Receiving a Source Block . . . . . . . . .  9
   4.  Small Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC Scheme . . . . . . 11
     4.1   Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     4.2   Formats and Codes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       4.2.1   FEC Payload ID(s)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       4.2.2   FEC Object Transmission Information  . . . . . . . . . 11
     4.3   Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     4.4   FEC Code Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   5.  Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.1   Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.2   Formats and Codes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       5.2.1   FEC Payload ID(s)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       5.2.2   FEC Object Transmission Information  . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.3   Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     5.4   FEC Code Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   6.  Compact FEC Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     6.1   Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     6.2   Formats and Codes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       6.2.1   FEC Payload ID(s)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       6.2.2   FEC Object Transmission Information  . . . . . . . . . 16
     6.3   Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     6.4   FEC code specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   7.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   8.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   9.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
       Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 21












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1.  Introduction

   The document specifies the following FEC Schemes according to the
   specification requirements of the FEC Building Block [12]:

   o  Compact No-Code FEC Scheme

   o  Small Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC Scheme

   o  Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme

   o  Compact FEC Scheme







































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2.  Requirements notation

   This document inherits the context, language, declarations and
   restrictions of the FEC building block [12].  This document also uses
   the terminology of the companion document [3] which describes the use
   of FEC codes within the context of reliable IP multicast transport
   and provides an introduction to some commonly used FEC codes.

   Building blocks are defined in RFC 3048 [10].  This document is a
   product of the IETF RMT WG and follows the general guidelines
   provided in RFC 3269 [4].

   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 [1].




































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3.  Compact No-Code FEC Scheme

3.1  Introduction

   The Compact No-code FEC Scheme is a Fully-Specified FEC Scheme.  The
   scheme requires no FEC coding and is specified primarily to allow
   simple interoperability testing between different implementations of
   protocol instantiations that use the FEC building block.

3.2  Formats and Codes

3.2.1  FEC Payload ID(s)

   The FEC Payload ID for the Compact No-Code FEC Scheme is composed of
   a Source Block Number and an Encoding Symbol ID as shown in Figure 1.

        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |     Source Block Number       |      Encoding Symbol ID       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Figure 1: FEC Payload ID format for Compact No-Code FEC Scheme

   The 16-bit Source Block Number is used to identify from which source
   block of the object the encoding symbol in the payload of the packet
   is generated.  There are two possible modes: In the unique SBN mode
   each source block within the object has a unique Source Block Number
   associated with it, and in the non-unique SBN mode the same Source
   Block Number may be used for more than one source block within the
   object.  Which mode is being used for an object is outside the scope
   of this document and MUST be communicated, either explicitly or
   implicitly, out-of-band to receivers.

   If the unique SBN mode is used then successive Source Block Numbers
   are associated with consecutive source blocks of the object starting
   with Source Block Number 0 for the first source block of the object.
   In this case, there are at most 2^^16 source blocks in the object.

   If the non-unique SBN mode is used then the mapping from source
   blocks to Source Block Numbers MUST be communicated out-of-band to
   receivers, and how this is done is outside the scope of this
   document.  This mapping could be implicit, for example determined by
   the transmission order of the source blocks.  In non-unique SBN mode,
   packets for two different source blocks mapped to the same Source
   Block Number SHOULD NOT be sent within an interval of time that is
   shorter than the transport time of a source block.  The transport
   time of a source block includes the amount of time the source block



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   is processed at the transport layer by the sender, the network
   transit time for packets, and the amount of time the source block is
   processed at the transport layer by a receiver.  This allows the
   receiver to clearly decide which packets belong to which source
   block.

   The 16-bit Encoding Symbol ID identifies which specific encoding
   symbol generated from the source block is carried in the packet
   payload.  The exact details of the correspondence between Encoding
   Symbol IDs and the encoding symbols in the packet payload are
   specified in Section 3.4.

3.2.2  FEC Object Transmission Information

3.2.2.1  Mandatory

   The mandatory FEC Object Transmission Information elements for the
   Compact No-Code FEC Scheme are:

   o  FEC Encoding ID: zero (0)


3.2.2.2  Common

   The common FEC Object Transmission Information elements and their
   value ranges for the Compact No-code FEC Scheme are:

   Transfer-Length: a non-negative integer less than 2^^48.

   Encoding-Symbol-Length: a non-negative integer less than 2^^16.

   Maximum-Source-Block-Length: a non-negative integer less than 2^^32.

   Note that the semantics for the above elements are defined in [12]
   and are not duplicated here.

   Where an explicit encoding format defined by the FEC Scheme is
   required for these elements, they SHALL be encoded according to
   Figure 2.












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       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |    Encoding Symbol Length     | Max. Source Block Length (MSB)|
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      | Max. Source Block Length (LSB)|
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Figure 2: Common FEC OTI enoding format for Compact No-Code FEC
                                  Scheme

   All Encoding Symbols of a transport object MUST have length equal to
   the length specified in the Encoding Symbol Length element, with the
   optional exception of the last source symbol of the last source block
   (so that redundant padding is not mandatory in this last symbol).
   This last source symbol MUST be logically padded out with zeroes when
   another Encoding Symbol is computed based on this source symbol to
   ensure the same interpretation of this Encoding Symbol value by the
   sender and receiver.  However, this padding does not actually need to
   be sent with the data of the last source symbol.

      Note: this FEC Scheme was first defined in [11] which did not
      require that the Encoding Symbol Length should be the same for
      every source block.  However, no protocols have been defined which
      support variation in the Encoding Symbol Length between source
      blocks and thus introduction of a general requirement that the
      Encoding Symbol Length be the same across source blocks (as
      proposed here) should not cause backwards compatibility issues and
      will aid interoperability.


3.2.2.3  Scheme-Specific

   No Scheme-Specific FEC Object Transmission Information elements are
   defined by this FEC Scheme.

3.3  Procedures

   The algorithm defined in Section 9.1. of [12] MUST be used to
   partition the file into source blocks.

      Note: this FEC Scheme was first defined in [11] which did not
      define an algorithm for partitioning the file.  FLUTE [9] defined
      an algorithm equivalent to that referenced above and recommended
      its use with the Compact No-Code FEC Scheme.  Since no other
      algorithms have been defined the requirement above can be
      introduced without backwards compatiblity issues.  Specification
      of a single mandatory partitioning algorithm should aid



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      interoperability.


3.4  FEC code specification

   The Compact No-Code FEC scheme does not require FEC encoding or
   decoding.  Instead, each encoding symbol consists of consecutive
   bytes of a source block of the object.

   The following two subsections describe the details of how the Compact
   No-Code FEC scheme operates for each source block of an object.

3.4.1  Source Block Logistics

   Let X > 0 be the length of a source block in bytes.  Let L > 0 be the
   length of the encoding symbol contained in the payload of each
   packet.  The value of X and L are part of the FEC Object Transmission
   Information, and how this information is communicated to a receiver
   is outside the scope of this document.

   For a given source block X bytes in length with Source Block Number
   I, let N = X/L rounded up to the nearest integer.  The encoding
   symbol carried in the payload of a packet consists of a consecutive
   portion of the source block.  The source block is logically
   partitioned into N encoding symbols, each L bytes in length, and the
   corresponding Encoding Symbol IDs range from 0 through N-1 starting
   at the beginning of the source block and proceeding to the end.
   Thus, the encoding symbol with Encoding Symbol ID Y consists of bytes
   L*Y through L*(Y+1)-1 of the source block, where the bytes of the
   source block are numbered from 0 through X-1.  If X/L is not integral
   then the last encoding symbol with Encoding Symbol ID = N-1 consists
   of bytes L*(N-1) through the last byte X-1 of the source block, and
   the remaining L*N - X bytes of the encoding symbol can by padded out
   with zeroes.

   As an example, suppose that the source block length X = 20,400 and
   encoding symbol length L = 1,000.  The encoding symbol with Encoding
   Symbol ID = 10 contains bytes 10,000 through 10,999 of the source
   block, and the encoding symbol with Encoding Symbol ID = 20 contains
   bytes 20,000 through the last byte 20,399 of the source block and the
   remaining 600 bytes of the encoding symbol can be padded with zeroes.

   There are no restrictions beyond the rules stated above on how a
   sender generates encoding symbols to send from a source block.
   However, it is recommended that an implementor of refer to the
   companion document [2] for general advice.

   In the next subsection a procedure is recommended for sending and



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   receiving source blocks.

3.4.2  Sending and Receiving a Source Block

   The following carousel procedure is RECOMMENDED for a sender to
   generate packets containing FEC Payload IDs and corresponding
   encoding symbols for a source block with Source Block Number I. Set
   the length in bytes of an encoding symbol to a fixed value L which is
   reasonable for a packet payload (e.g., ensure that the total packet
   size does not exceed the MTU) and that is smaller than the source
   block length X, e.g., L = 1,000 for X >= 1,000.  Initialize Y to a
   value randomly chosen in the interval [0..N-1].  Repeat the following
   for each packet of the source block to be sent.

   o  If Y <= N-1 then generate the encoding symbol Y.

   o  Within the FEC Payload ID, set the Source Block Length to X, set
      the Source Block Number = I, set the Encoding Symbol ID = Y, place
      the FEC Payload ID and the encoding symbol into the packet to
      send.

   o  In preparation for the generation of the next packet: if Y < N-1
      then increment Y by one else if Y = N-1 then reset Y to zero.

   The following procedure is RECOMMENDED for a receiver to recover the
   source block based on receiving packets for the source block from a
   sender that is using the carousel procedure described above.  The
   receiver can determine from which source block a received packet was
   generated by the Source Block Number carried in the FEC Payload ID.
   Upon receipt of the first FEC Payload ID for a source block, the
   receiver uses the source block length received out-of-band as part of
   the FEC Object Transmission Information to determine the length X in
   bytes of the source block, and allocates space for the X bytes that
   the source block requires.  The receiver also computes the length L
   of the encoding symbol in the payload of the packet by substracting
   the packet header length from the total length of the received packet
   (and the receiver checks that this length is the same in each
   subsequent received packet from the same source block).  After
   calculating N = X/L rounded up to the nearest integer, the receiver
   allocates a boolean array RECEIVED[0..N-1] with all N entries
   initialized to false to track received encoding symbols.  The
   receiver keeps receiving packets for the source block as long as
   there is at least one entry in RECEIVED still set to false or until
   the application decides to give up on this source block and move on
   to other source blocks.  For each received packet for the source
   block (including the first packet) the steps to be taken to help
   recover the source block are as follows.  Let Y be the value of the
   Encoding Symbol ID within FEC Payload ID of the packet.  If Y <= N-1



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   then the receiver copies the encoding symbol into the appropriate
   place within the space reserved for the source block and sets
   RECEIVED[Y] = true.  If all N entries of RECEIVED are true then the
   receiver has recovered the entire source block.















































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4.  Small Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC Scheme

4.1  Introduction

   This section defines an Under-Specified FEC Scheme for Small Block
   FEC codes, Large Block FEC codes and Expandable FEC codes as
   described in [3].

4.2  Formats and Codes

4.2.1  FEC Payload ID(s)

   The FEC Payload ID is composed of a Source Block Number and an
   Encoding Symbol ID structured as shown in Figure 3.

        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Source Block Number                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                      Encoding Symbol ID                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

     Figure 3: FEC Payload ID format for Small Block, Large Block and
                           Expandable FEC Codes

   The Source Block Number identifies from which source block of the
   object the encoding symbol(s) in the payload are generated.  These
   blocks are numbered consecutively from 0 to N-1, where N is the
   number of source blocks in the object.

   The Encoding Symbol ID identifies which specific encoding symbol(s)
   generated from the source block are carried in the packet payload.
   The exact details of the correspondence between Encoding Symbol IDs
   and the encoding symbol(s) in the packet payload are dependent on the
   particular FEC Scheme instance used as identified by the FEC Encoding
   ID and by the FEC Instance ID, and these details may be proprietary.

4.2.2  FEC Object Transmission Information

4.2.2.1  Mandatory

   The mandatory FEC Object Transmission Information elements for the
   Small Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC Scheme are:

   o  FEC Encoding ID: 128





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   o  FEC Instance ID: defined by instances of this FEC Scheme


4.2.2.2  Common

   The common FEC Object Transmission Information elements and their
   encoding are the same as defined for the Compact No-Code FEC Scheme
   in Section 3.2.2.2.

4.2.2.3  Scheme-Specific

   No Scheme-Specific FEC Object Transmission Information elements are
   defined by this FEC Scheme.

4.3  Procedures

   The algorithm defined in Section 9.1. of [12] MUST be used to
   partition the file into source blocks.

      Note: this FEC Scheme was first defined in [11] which did not
      define an algorithm for partitioning the file.  FLUTE [9] defined
      an algorithm equivalent to that referenced above and recommended
      its use with the Small Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC
      Scheme.  Since no other algorithms have been defined the
      requirement above can be introduced without backwards compatiblity
      issues.  Specification of a single mandatory partitioning
      algorithm should aid interoperability.


4.4  FEC Code Specification

   The FEC code specification and the correspondance of Encoding Symbols
   IDs to encoding symbols are defined by specific instances of this
   scheme and so are out of scope of this document.

















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5.  Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme

5.1  Introduction

   This section defines an Under-Specified FEC Scheme for Small Block
   Systematic FEC codes as described in [3].  For Small Block Systematic
   FEC codes, each source block is of length at most 65536 source
   symbols.

   Although these codes can generally be accommodated by the FEC
   Encoding ID described in Section 4, a specific FEC Encoding ID is
   defined for Small Block Systematic FEC codes to allow more
   flexibility and to retain header compactness.  The small source block
   length and small expansion factor that often characterize systematic
   codes may require the data source to frequently change the source
   block length.  To allow the dynamic variation of the source block
   length and to communicate it to the receivers with low overhead, the
   block length is included in the FEC Payload ID.

5.2  Formats and Codes

5.2.1  FEC Payload ID(s)

   The FEC Payload ID is composed of the Source Block Number, Source
   Block Length and the Encoding Symbol ID structured as shown in
   Figure 4.

        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Source Block Number                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      Source Block Length      |       Encoding Symbol ID      |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   Figure 4: FEC Payload ID format for Small Block Systematic FEC scheme

   The Source Block Number identifies from which source block of the
   object the encoding symbol(s) in the payload are generated.  These
   blocks are numbered consecutively from 0 to N-1, where N is the
   number of source blocks in the object.

   The Source Block Length is the length in units of source symbols of
   the source block identified by the Source Block Number.

   The Encoding Symbol ID identifies which specific encoding symbol(s)
   generated from the source block are carried in the packet payload.
   Each encoding symbol is either an original source symbol or a



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   redundant symbol generated by the encoder.  The exact details of the
   correspondence between Encoding Symbol IDs and the encoding symbol(s)
   in the packet payload are dependent on the particular FEC scheme
   instance used as identified by the FEC Instance ID, and these details
   may be proprietary.

5.2.2  FEC Object Transmission Information

5.2.2.1  Mandatory

   The mandatory FEC Object Transmission Information elements for the
   Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme are:

   o  FEC Encoding ID: 129

   o  FEC Instance ID: defined by instances of this FEC Scheme


5.2.2.2  Common

   The common FEC Object Transmission Information elements and their
   value ranges for the Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme are:

   Transfer-Length: a non-negative integer less than 2^^48.

   Encoding-Symbol-Length: a non-negative integer less than 2^^16.

   Maximum-Source-Block-Length: a non-negative integer less than 2^^16.

   Max-Number-of-Encoding-Symbols: a non-negative integer less than
      2^^16

   Note that the semantics for the above elements are defined in [12]
   and are not duplicated here.

   Where an explicit encoding format is required for these elements,
   they SHALL be encoded according to Figure 5.

       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |    Encoding Symbol Length     |  Maximum Source Block Length  |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      | Max. Num. of Encoding Symbols |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Figure 5: FEC OTI format for Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme




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   All Encoding Symbols of a transport object MUST have length equal to
   the length specified in the Encoding Symbol Length field, with the
   optional exception of the last source symbol of the last source block
   (so that redundant padding is not mandatory in this last symbol).
   This last source symbol MUST be logically padded out with zeroes when
   another Encoding Symbol is computed based on this source symbol to
   ensure the same interpretation of this Encoding Symbol value by the
   sender and receiver.  However, this padding need not be actually sent
   with the data of the last source symbol.

      Note: this FEC Scheme was first defined in [2] which did not
      require that the Encoding Symbol Length should be the same for
      every source block.  However, no protocols have been defined which
      support variation in the Encoding Symbol Length between source
      blocks and thus introduction of a general requirement that the
      Encoding Symbol Length be the same across source blocks (as
      proposed here) should not cause backwards compatibility issues and
      will aid interoperability.


5.2.2.3  Scheme-Specific

   No Scheme-Specific FEC Object Transmission Information elements are
   defined by this FEC Scheme.

5.3  Procedures

   The algorithm defined in Section 9.1. of [12] MAY be used to
   partition the file into source blocks.

      DISCUSSION NOTE: This FEC scheme was intended for systematic FEC
      codes, but no correspondance between Encoding Symbol IDs and
      source symbols was defined - this was left to instances of the
      scheme (of which there are presently none).  Specification as part
      of the scheme of the correspondance between Encoding Symbols ID
      values and source symbols would allow receivers that did not
      support a given instance of this scheme to correctly receive at
      least the source symbols.


5.4  FEC Code Specification

   The FEC code specification and the correspondance of Encoding Symbols
   IDs to encoding symbols are defined by specific instances of this
   scheme and so are out of scope of this document.






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6.  Compact FEC Scheme

6.1  Introduction

   The Compact FEC Scheme is an Under-Specified FEC scheme.  This FEC
   scheme is similar in spirit to the Compact No-Code FEC scheme, except
   that a non-trivial FEC encoding (that is Under-Specified) may be used
   to generate encoding symbol(s) placed in the payload of each packet
   and a corresponding FEC decoder may be used to produce the source
   block from received packets.

6.2  Formats and Codes

6.2.1  FEC Payload ID(s)

   The FEC Payload ID format defined in Section 3.2.1 SHALL be used.

6.2.2  FEC Object Transmission Information

6.2.2.1  Mandatory

   The mandatory FEC Object Transmission Information elements for the
   Compact No-Code FEC Scheme are:

   o  FEC Encoding ID: 130

   o  FEC Instance ID: defined by instances of this FEC Scheme


6.2.2.2  Common

   The common FEC Object Transmission Information elements and their
   encoding are the same as defined for the Compact No-Code FEC Scheme
   in Section 3.2.2.2.

6.2.2.3  Scheme-Specific

   No Scheme-Specific FEC Object Transmission Information elements are
   defined by this FEC Scheme.

6.3  Procedures

   The algorithm defined in Section 9.1. of [12] MUST be used to
   partition the file into source blocks.

      Note: this FEC Scheme was first defined in [11] which did not
      define an algorithm for partitioning the file.  FLUTE [9] defined
      an algorithm equivalent to that referenced above and recommended



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      its use with the Compact FEC Scheme.  Since no other algorithms
      have been defined the requirement above can be introduced without
      backwards compatiblity issues.  Specification of a single
      mandatory partitioning algorithm should aid interoperability.


6.4  FEC code specification

   The FEC code specification and the correspondance of Encoding Symbols
   IDs to encoding symbols are defined by specific instances of this
   scheme and so are out of scope of this document.








































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7.  Acknowledgments

   This document is based in part on [11] by Michael Luby and Lorenzo
   Vicisano.















































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8.  IANA Considerations

   FEC Encoding IDs 0 and 130 were first defined and registered in the
   ietf:rmt:fec:encoding namespace by [11].  This document updates and
   obsoletes the definitions from that specification.

   FEC Encoding IDs 128 and 129 were first defined and registered in the
   ietf:rmt:fec:encoding namespace by [2].  This document updates and
   obsoletes the definitions from that specification.

9.  References

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

   [2]   Luby, M., Vicisano, L., Gemmell, J., Rizzo, L., Handley, M.,
         and J. Crowcroft, "Forward Error Correction (FEC) Building
         Block", RFC 3452, December 2002.

   [3]   Luby, M., Vicisano, L., Gemmell, J., Rizzo, L., Handley, M.,
         and J. Crowcroft, "The Use of Forward Error Correction (FEC) in
         Reliable Multicast", RFC 3453, December 2002.

   [4]   Kermode, R. and L. Vicisano, "Author Guidelines for Reliable
         Multicast Transport (RMT) Building Blocks and Protocol
         Instantiation documents", RFC 3269, April 2002.

   [5]   Mankin, A., Romanov, A., Bradner, S., and V. Paxson, "IETF
         Criteria for Evaluating Reliable Multicast Transport and
         Application Protocols", RFC 2357, June 1998.

   [6]   Rivest, R., "The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC 1321,
         April 1992.

   [7]   Masinter, L., "Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
         (HTCPCP/1.0)", RFC 2324, April 1998.

   [8]   Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA
         Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434,
         October 1998.

   [9]   Paila, T., Luby, M., Lehtonen, R., Roca, V., and R. Walsh,
         "FLUTE - File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport",
         RFC 3926, October 2004.

   [10]  Whetten, B., Vicisano, L., Kermode, R., Handley, M., Floyd, S.,
         and M. Luby, "Reliable Multicast Transport Building Blocks for
         One-to-Many Bulk-Data Transfer", RFC 3048, January 2001.



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   [11]  Luby, M. and L. Vicisano, "Compact Forward Error Correction
         (FEC) Schemes", RFC 3695, February 2004.

   [12]  Watson, M., "Forward Error Correction (FEC) Building Block",
         draft-ietf-rmt-fec-bb-revised-00 (work in progress), May 2005.


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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