Subject: Re: Text vs. Binary (was Re: Results from the ITU SG16 Berlin

From: Scott Petrack <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 19:31:53 -0400

(coming back from a week of not reading email)

If one uses megaco this way (let's call it in "sip competition mode"),
then the problem is usually perceived to be the MTU -- if signalling
messages get too large, they get fragemented, which is bad.

If there is a requirement to use megaco this way, care should be taken
that for this application messages can be short enough not to be
fragmented.

Of course, as has been said many times, it is by no means clear that
binary messages are shorter than text messages.

(Also, as I have said before, it would be nice if even a text protocol
would use short fixed length tags, for the benefit of *extremely* simple
end devices which don't do sophisticated signalling, where even a
small savings in complexity or cost is considered worthwhile (because
it might reduce by a few pennies the cost of the consumer hardware).

Scott

On Wed, 11 Aug 1999, Scott Bradner wrote:

> Bob Bell clarifies:
> > The WAN links are not carrying call control messaging only. These are
> > carrying voice, data, and control. For that reason, if there is a MAJOR
> > difference between the binary vs text message size, it could be an issue.
>
> I'd think the difference would have to be very large indeed - if teh
> difference between text & binary in teh signaling causes the link to
> overload I'd say the link was runing so close to the limit
> that small variations in the voice & data would cause it to congest
> far more often than too much signaling (which I would trust is
> at a far lower level than the voice & data)
>
>
> Scott
>