Re: Working Group Last Call

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005, I wrote, regarding Edward Beili's proposal to
add a TC for auto-negotiation capabilities to the IANA-MAU-MIB and
use it in the definitions of ifMauAutoNegCapabilityBits,
ifMauAutoNegCapAdvertisedBits and ifMauAutoNegCapReceivedBits:

> If there is a realistic possibility that future MAU types will
> support auto-negotiation, then it is probably advantageous to
> put the capability list under IANA maintenance so that it (like
> the MAU types) can be expanded quickly upon approval of a new
> 802.3 standard.  The main counter-argument would be that doing
> this would lengthen an already protracted process.  In making a
> decision it might be useful to solicit input from the 802.3 WG
> regarding the likelihood of the introduction of new
> auto-negotiation capabilities.

I just went poking around on the 802.3 web site and found the
following document that was presented at the Oct. 17 - 18, 2005
interim meeting of the P802.3an (10GBASE-T) Task Force:

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/an/public/oct05/vandoorn_1_1005.pdf

It discusses auto-negotiation registers for 10GBASE-T.  I think that
is pretty strong evidence that there is indeed a realistic
possibility that future MAU types will support auto-negotiation.

Regards,

Mike Heard