M3UA retransmissions on T(ack) expiry

RFC 4666 suggests that ASP Up/Down/Active/Inactive be
retransmitted when T(ack) expires.
In my opinion this is completely pointless.

M3UA runs over a reliable transport (usually SCTP) so
the initial message cannot get 'lost' in the network.

Lack of a response has to indicate that something much
more serious is wrong (eg the connected remote system
isn't running M3UA), so the only real recovery is to
disconnect the SCTP connection itself and retry the
connection later - hopefully with different configuration
parameters somewhere.

Resending the messages only leaves to greater problems having
to handle unexpected (duplicate) ack messages if the underlying
problem is that the timeout is too short.

Is there some other reason why the RFC suggusts these messages
be retransmitted?

	David.

Registered Address Lakeside, Bramley Road, Mount Farm, Milton Keynes, MK1 1PT, UK
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