The Wireless Embedded Internet Helping the next Billion Nodes onto the Internet

IETF plans 6lo WG as successor to 6LoWPAN WG

A year ago , I mentioned that the 6LoWPAN WG, having completed its work program, is being shut down.

Of course, the work on 6LoWPAN technologies and constrained node networks continues, and a new WG for handling their Internet Area aspects is under consideration by the IETF's steering group IESG.  The proposed charter of the 6lo WG reads:

6lo focuses on Internet Area work that is needed for constrained node
networks with the characteristics of:
* limited power, memory and processing resources
* hard upper bounds on state, code space and processing cycles
* optimization of energy and network bandwidth usage
* lack of some layer 2 services like complete device connectivity and
broadcast/multicast

Specifically, 6lo will work on:

1. IPv6-over-foo adaptation layer specifications using 6LoWPAN
technologies
(RFC4944, RFC6282, RFC6775) for link layer technologies of interest in
constrained node networks

2. Related MIB modules

3. Specifications, such as header compression, that are applicable to
more
than one adaptation layer specification

4. Maintenance and informational documents required for the existing IETF
specifications in this space.

Only specifications targeting constrained node networks are in scope. 6lo
will work closely with the 6man working group, which will continue to
work on IP-over-foo documents outside the constrained node network space
and will continue to be the focal point for IPv6 maintenance. For
adaptation layer specifications that do not have implications on IPv6
architecture, 6man will be notified about 6lo's working group last call.
Specifications that might have such an impact (e.g., by using IPv6
addresses in a specific way or by introducing new ND options) will be
closely coordinated with 6man, and/or specific parts will be fanned out
to 6man documents. Beyond 6man, 6lo will also coordinate with LWIG and
INTAREA.

6lo works on small, focused pieces of Internet Area work. 6lo does not
take on larger cross-layer efforts. The working group will continue to
reuse existing protocols and mechanisms whenever reasonable and possible.

Security and management work that is not specific to the link layers
being
worked on is out of scope. Work related to routing is out of scope. 6lo
will coordinate closely with the working groups in other areas that focus
on constrained node networks, such as ROLL (RTG) and CoRE (APP).

At this point, this is at the stage of a proposal, with comments requested until 2013-10-03.  See the full announcement at the IETF announcement archive.

6lo is expected to have their first WG meeting in early November at IETF88 in Vancouver.