Subject: Response to Communication on T.37 Full Mode

From: James Rafferty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 16:39:45 -0400

To:   Rapporteur,  ITU-T Study Group 8, Question 4

From:   Chair, IETF Internet Fax Working Group   

Contact Information:    James Rafferty
				Human Communications
				12 Kevin Drive
				Danbury, CT 06811
				Phone/fax:  +1-203-746-4367
				Email:   [email-masked]

Subject:   Response to Communication on Full Mode

We are writing in response to the communication from the March-April 
Study Group 8 meeting regarding aspects of the full mode.    

It is our understanding that the Amendment 1 to T.37 which will 
references the extended mode RFCs 2530-2532 is up for approval in the 
September 1999 meeting of Study Group 8.    We hope that this amendment 
which realizes the "Full Mode" will be approved.   We have submitted 
some additional supporting reference documents as contributions from The 
Internet Society.    

In the last communication, there were items 2.1-2.4 which addressed 
various matters.   Your request and our response for each of these 
points follows:   

2.1.    Request - In RFC2532, the MDN/DSN request has no means to 
indicate
precisely to the receiver, that the sender desires to have capabilities
returned with MDN/DSN response.  This situation is difficult for the
facsimile application, since the capabilities of the receiver is
required for the Full Mode sender before transmitting a TIFF-FX file.
Since the existing capabilities exchange mechanism uses MDN and DSN
facilities, further enhancements to this method are high priority for
us.

Response:   We have discussed this item and want to note the following.  
First, the current specification (RFC 2532) indicates an extended mode 
fax receiver SHOULD send capability information in response to a request 
for confirmation, and within IETF specifications, SHOULD is a very 
strong requirement, and should not be disregarded without a very good 
reason.   However, we understand that you would like enhancements to 
this method.   There has been discussion in the working group on 
possibilities for such enhancements.   Two members of the working group 
have made proposals on ways to enhance this method to cover cases where 
the sender has the capability to send the content using different TIFF-
FX (RFC 2301) profiles or different sets of capabilities.   We have 
encouraged them to collaborate on an Internet Draft.  We will keep you 
posted on any related progress.     

2.2  Request - 2.2    The fax processed status information in RFC2530 
needs to be enhanced. We need a facility to enable the total number of 
pages and pages in error to be returned to the sender in a MDN to 
indicate successful processing.  We need further precision on the fax 
status information using DSN and/or MDN.

Response - This request falls into the category of potential 
enhancements to the content of DSN/MDN messages, evidently on the matter 
of processing results.    At the July IETF meeting, there was some 
discussion in our working group and informally among fax, voice and 
email experts about the potential for further enhancements to MDNs.     
The general feeling is that reasonable enhancements need to be proposed 
and can then be considered.   This could take the form of extensions to 

RFC 2298.    Related Internet Drafts are invited and would need to be 
discussed on the fax list, and also among voice and email experts in the 
IETF.   

2.3    Request - Similarly the specification within RFC2298 for the 
value processed need to be enhanced. We need further precision to ensure 
that the specific MDN response that is generated clearly indicates that 
the MIME body part(s) has been successfully processed (i.e. printed or
displayed).

Response - As noted for item 2.2 above, there was some informal activity 
at the July IETF meeting among fax, email and voice experts related to 
this item.   The general feeling was that The development of 
enhancements to the MDN to provide greater detail on the results of 
individual attachments to a message, especially for multi-part 
structures, is an enhancement that would be beneficial for several 
applications.    Interested people have been invited to develop an 
Internet Draft which contains such enhancements for discussion within 
the fax, voice and email communities of IETF.    No draft has been 
produced to date.    

2.4   Request - We request further study and a more complete solution on
mechanisms for capabilities request and indication that can be used to
meet  the Internet fax requirements for capability exchange.

Response - As noted in the response to item 2.1, there are some working 
group members who have ideas on making enhancements to the current 
methods as specified in RFC 2530-2532.    There is also a group of IETF 
experts who have been involved in a Resource Capabilities "Birds of a 
Feather" activity.   The draft charter of this potential working group 
has targeted the development of methods that will enable a requestor to 
resolve to a list of capabilities that are supported for a specific 
Internet address, such as a Uniform Resource Locator.   However, this 
prospective working group has not yet been chartered, so there is no 
specific timetable for development of such facilities.   

For your information, there are some remaining charter items for the 
working group which you may find of interest.    We are planning on 
completing work this Fall to progress the current RFCs for the Simple 
Mode (RFC 2301-2305) to the "draft standard" level.    There are some 
interworking tests that are still needed to complete this step, 
primarily with respect to support for the RFC 2303/2304 methods of 
Offramp addressing using a minimal set of PSTN elements within email 
addresses.   The working group is also actively developing a draft for 
support of fax cover pages, which is targeted as a proposed standard.    
In addition, there are drafts in progress of an informative nature which 
would address:  1)  An Internet Fax Implementor's Guide, and 2) A 
Mapping of T.30 to the Fax Feature Schema (per RFC 2531).    We will 
also plan to inform you in the event that new RFCs are issued which may 
have an impact on the references contained within the T.37 
recommendation.    

*------------------------------------------------*
James Rafferty			
President, Human Communications LLC
12 Kevin Drive			
Danbury, CT  06811-2901		
USA					
Voice/Fax:  +1-203-746-4367
Fax to email:  +1-603-925-5753  (Current Preferred Fax Number)
Email/Internet Fax:  [email-masked]
Alternate email : [email-masked],
 [email-masked] (chg from csi.com)

HC Web Site:  http://humancomm.com 
*---------------------------------------------------