Internet Engineering Task Force                                 J. Daley
Internet-Draft                                   IETF Administration LLC
Intended status: Informational                             28 April 2025
Expires: 30 October 2025


                       IETF Network Requirements
              draft-daley-meeting-network-requirements-00

Abstract

   This document aims to initiate a conversation to clarify the way
   forward to address disagreements within the community about the
   requirements for the IETF meeting network, how it is delivered and
   whether or not the current cost and effort of providing the network
   is reasonable.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 30 October 2025.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.




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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Requirements that the IETF Network currently aims to meet . .   4
     4.1.  The meeting networks and their purposes . . . . . . . . .   4
       4.1.1.  Conference network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       4.1.2.  Hotel network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       4.1.3.  Experimental network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  Expectations of how these networks should be operated . .   6
       4.2.1.  High performance and robust . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.2.  Low friction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.3.  Good access to network data, without compromising
               privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.4.  Every participant needs to be able to participate
               fully . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.5.  Early adopter of relevant, production-ready IETF
               standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.6.  Open, transparent and community-led development . . .   8
   5.  How the IETF Network is currently delivered . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.1.  IETF NOC  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.2.  Conference network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       5.2.1.  Approach  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       5.2.2.  Equipment and services  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       5.2.3.  Set up and management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       5.2.4.  Multiple SSIDs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.3.  Experimental network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       5.3.1.  Test SSIDs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       5.3.2.  Hackathon network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       5.3.3.  Local experimental networks . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.4.  Hotel network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.5.  Remote participation services . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.6.  Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.7.  Network data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.8.  Cost  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   6.  Meeting networks at other meetings  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     6.1.  NANOG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     6.2.  W3C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   7.  Areas of disagreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   8.  Next steps  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   9.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   11. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     11.1.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17




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1.  Introduction

   The network that IETF participants use at an IETF Meeting has been a
   high-profile feature of IETF Meetings for some time and is now a
   major part of the behind-the-scenes work and cost of running an IETF
   Meeting.  This network replaces any venue network using equipment
   donated by suppliers, installed and managed by a mixed team of
   volunteers and contractors.

   There are disagreements within the community about the requirements
   for this network, how it is delivered and whether or not the current
   cost and effort of providing the network is reasonable.

   The IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) has overall responsibility for
   delivering IETF Meetings to meet community-set requirements including
   managing the meeting costs and service provision.  However, the IETF
   LLC is unclear on what the path is to resolve these disagreements.
   This is important because they get to the heart of the requirements
   for the IETF Network and the resulting provision of that network.
   The main area of uncertainty is whether this is a community matter
   that requires a community-led process to determine an outcome such as
   an RFC, or this is for the IETF LLC to lead on and make decisions
   through its normal consultative processes.

   This document aims to initiate a conversation to clarify the way
   forward.  To do this, it provides a full primer on the facts needed
   to understand the current situation and the areas of disagreement.
   This includes It sets out the current high-level requirements for the
   IETF Network, an overview of how the IETF Network is delivered, how
   this relates back to the requirements and where the areas of
   disagreement are.

2.  Terms

   IETF Network:  Used generically to mean the network used by IETF
      participants at an IETF meeting, however it is provided.

   Remote Participation Services (RPS):  The service and all the parts
      that go with it that allows remote people to participate in an
      IETF Meeting.

   Meeting Tool:  The tool participants must use during the meeting in
      order to participate.

3.  Background

   [BCP226] gives the following relevant mandatory criterion for venue
   selection:



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   |  It MUST be possible to provision Internet Access to the Facility
   |  and IETF Hotels that allows those attending in person to utilize
   |  the Internet for all their IETF, business, and day-to-day needs;
   |  in addition, there must be sufficient bandwidth and access for
   |  remote attendees.  Provisions include, but are not limited to,
   |  native and unmodified IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity, and global
   |  reachability; there may be no additional limitation that would
   |  materially impact their Internet use.  To ensure availability, it
   |  MUST be possible to provision redundant paths to the Internet.

   It further goes on to give the following important, but not
   mandatory, relevant criteria:

   |  *  The Facility's support technologies and services -- network,
   |     audio-video, etc. -- are sufficient for the anticipated
   |     activities at the meeting, or the Facility is willing to add
   |     such infrastructure, or these support technologies and services
   |     might be provided by a third party, all at no -- or at an
   |     acceptable -- cost to the IETF.
   |  
   |  *  The IETF Hotels directly provide, or else permit and
   |     facilitate, the delivery of a high performance, robust,
   |     unfiltered, and unmodified Internet service for the public
   |     areas and guest rooms; this service is to be included in the
   |     cost of the room.

   In summary, this sets out requirements for a meeting network,
   conceptually split into two networks:

   *  Conference network

   *  Hotel network

   It also sets the the following required attributes for those
   networks:

   *  Unfiltered and unmodified.

   *  High performance and robust.

4.  Requirements that the IETF Network currently aims to meet

4.1.  The meeting networks and their purposes








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4.1.1.  Conference network

   The mandatory criterion in [BCP226] is clear that the core purpose of
   the IETF Network is a conference network, which includes "all their
   IETF, business, and day-to-day needs".

   In addition it requires that "there must be sufficient bandwidth and
   access for remote attendees".  However, in practice this requirement
   has expanded in scope and importance as it is no longer possible to
   run an IETF Meeting without full support for the RPS and Meeting
   Tool:

   *  Over time, and boosted by the period during the COVID-pandemic
      when IETF Meetings went fully online, the level of active remote
      participation has grown considerably, and IETF Meetings have
      become dependent on the RPS to support this.

   *  Several meeting practices now rely on the Meeting Tool, including
      the use of the queuing feature for all speakers at the microphone,
      recording meeting participation and the use of the poll feature to
      replace humming.

4.1.2.  Hotel network

   The requirement for a hotel network (irrespective of how it is
   delivered) is set in [BCP226] as documented above, but this does not
   explain why this is a requirement.

   One possible reason is that IETF participants have a higher
   dependency on the reliability of the hotel network than other hotel
   guests due to the nature of IETF participation, explained as follows.

   As evidenced by annual community surveys, participation in the IETF
   is a part-time activity for a very high percentage of participants.
   During the week of an IETF meeting, participants spend a much higher
   proportion of their working week on IETF activities than otherwise,
   which pushes many to work on their day job work and other personal
   commitments out of hours, from their hotel rooms, thereby increasing
   their dependency on the hotel network.

4.1.3.  Experimental network

   In addition to a conference network and a hotel network, the IETF
   Network also fulfills the purpose of an experimental network.

   Running code is a key part of the IETF process.  As documented in
   [BCP205] "there are benefits to the IETF standardization process of
   producing implementations of protocol specifications before



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   publication as RFCs".  Producing protocol implementations is, by
   definition, experimental on a network and so brings with it specific
   requirements that would not ordinarily be supported, such as:

   *  Running networking equipment with experimental features on them.

   *  Providing an SSID which implements an experimental feature.

   *  Sending packets that are built in ways that production equipment
      cannot recognise.

   Such experimentation can have an adverse impact on a production
   network and therefore needs to be clearly managed to prevent that.

4.2.  Expectations of how these networks should be operated

   Only the first of the following expectations is documented in a BCP.
   The rest have been understood by the IETF NOC, over many years of
   running the IETF Network, to be the expectations of the IETF
   community.  These latter expectations do not have community consensus
   and have not been sufficiently reviewed to understand if they are
   mandatory or just desirable.

   These expectations do not equally apply to the conference, hotel and
   experimental networks.  The following table shows where they apply:

   +==============================+============+=======+==============+
   |                              | Conference | Hotel | Experimental |
   +==============================+============+=======+==============+
   | High performance and robust  | x          | x     | -            |
   +------------------------------+------------+-------+--------------+
   | Low friction                 | x          | x     | -            |
   +------------------------------+------------+-------+--------------+
   | Good access to network data, | x          | x     | x            |
   | without compromising privacy |            |       |              |
   +------------------------------+------------+-------+--------------+
   | Every participant needs to   | x          | -     | -            |
   | be able to participate fully |            |       |              |
   +------------------------------+------------+-------+--------------+
   | Early adopter of relevant,   | x          | -     | -            |
   | production-ready IETF        |            |       |              |
   | standards                    |            |       |              |
   +------------------------------+------------+-------+--------------+
   | Open, transparent and        | x          | x     | x            |
   | community-led development    |            |       |              |
   +------------------------------+------------+-------+--------------+

                                 Table 1



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4.2.1.  High performance and robust

   This expectation is set in [BCP226] and is taken to mean ample
   bandwidth, WiFi coverage everywhere, and 100% uptime experienced by
   all participants.  In other words, "it just works".

4.2.2.  Low friction

   The assumed expectation here is that using the network should involve
   as little friction as possible.  This is generally taken as
   minimising the need for participants to take a manual action to use
   the network for ordinary purposes.

4.2.3.  Good access to network data, without compromising privacy

   While not a documented expectation, there have been enough individual
   requests from IETF participants for good access to data on the IETF
   Network that this is considered a general expectation.  The reasons
   for these requests vary from general interest to assisting people in
   assessing if any changes are needed to either the network
   requirements or how it is delivered.

   The general privacy expectations of the IETF community are well
   documented and it is therefore assumed that access to network data
   must not compromise privacy.

4.2.4.  Every participant needs to be able to participate fully

   The expectation is that every participant is fully able to
   participate, as a requirement of the standards process.  In practice,
   this means that old (legacy) equipment is supported beyond what might
   be commonly supported.

4.2.5.  Early adopter of relevant, production-ready IETF standards

   The expectation here is that when a relevant IETF standard reaches
   the point where it is considered production-ready, work begins to
   implement it on the IETF Network.  "Production ready" means that a
   number of conditions are met:

   *  It is fully supported across all of the equipment that is part of
      the provision.

   *  The IETF NOC has sufficient knowledge and experience to support
      its use.

   *  All vendor support is identified by that vendor as production-
      ready not experimental support.



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4.2.6.  Open, transparent and community-led development

   It is a general expectation of the IETF community that all of the
   custom-developed tools and services that it relies on (not off-the-
   shelf tools and services), are developed in an open and transparent
   fashion that provides ample opportunity for IETF participants to
   share their views on how they should be developed, and that this
   development takes those views into consideration.

5.  How the IETF Network is currently delivered

5.1.  IETF NOC

   The IETF Network is delivered by the IETF NOC, which consists of four
   parts:

   *  A paid NOC lead.

   *  A team of volunteers, drawn primarily from long-term IETF
      participants.

   *  A team provided by a professional conference networking company.

   *  A team provided by a professional remote participation services
      company.

5.2.  Conference network

5.2.1.  Approach

   The IETF NOC provides its own conference network separate from that
   provided by a venue, by installing equipment and services at the
   venue.

   The reasoning for this approach is based on the experiences of many
   IETF NOC members (including those who work professionally on
   conference networks) regarding venue networks:

   *  Venue networks are rarely capable of delivering the requirements
      for the IETF Network, specifically:

      -  Rarely able to deliver IPv6

      -  Rarely able to cope with the number and variety of different
         devices (designed for coverage, not density)

      -  Rarely provide an onsite helpdesk




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      -  Rarely support recent wireless standards and features

      -  Rarely provide significant privacy protection

      -  Rarely able to support HackNet (see below)

      -  Rarely provides visibility into network usage

      -  Sometimes do not have sufficient bandwidth

      -  Sometimes have filtering or other traffic modification

   *  It is not possible to test the performance and reliability of
      venue networks well enough in advance to trust them (too many
      problems appear with scale and variety of clients)

5.2.2.  Equipment and services

   The equipment itself is stored between IETF Meetings by the
   professional conference networking company and shipped to each venue.
   The volume of this equipment is substantial, taking up a full rack
   and multiple other boxes.

   *  *1Gb/s or 10Gb/s Internet connection**, almost always donated by a
      local provider.  For some venues the provider installs a new fibre
      into the venue to deliver this connection.

   *  *Router(s)**.

   *  *Access points*, controllers* and switches** to provide WiFi
      coverage over the entire venue.

   *  *Servers** that provide core services such as DHCP and DNS, and
      onsite monitoring and management.

   *  *Raspberry Pis* for network monitoring.

   *  *Cameras, tripods, and A/V control equipment* for providing the
      remote participation services.

   *  *Dedicated IPv4 and IPv6 address blocks* that are ‘owned’ by the
      IETF.

   Items marked with * are donated by IETF sponsors - major equipment
   providers that are significantly engaged in the IETF.

   Most of this equipment is enterprise-grade and there are multiple
   devices of each class in order to provide a high level of redundancy.



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   The in-room WiFi equipment is primarily installed by the professional
   conference networking company and the A/V equipment by the remote
   participation services provider.

5.2.3.  Set up and management

   The set up generally takes three to four days or work before the
   Saturday when the IETF Meeting starts.

   During the meeting week, the delivery of the IETF Network is as
   follows:

   *  The NOC Lead has overall operational responsibility, which
      includes daily meetings, coordinating between the different teams
      and liaising with the Secretariat, LLC, venue and IETF leadership.

   *  The volunteer team manages the network, including all
      connectivity, WiFi access, and core services such as DHCP and DNS.

   *  The professional conference networking company manages the
      physical side of the equipment - power, location, cabling, etc.
      They also provide all first line support, including staffing the
      helpdesk.  Throughout the week, room configurations change.

   *  The professional remote participation services company delivers
      the remote participation services.

5.2.4.  Multiple SSIDs

   The conference network is entirely wireless and delivered as a set of
   SSIDs, each with different characteristics to support different
   users:

   *ietf*.  The main SSID.  Currently this delivers IPv4 and IPv6 with
      public addresses assigned to each client.  It is expected to move
      to any IPv6-mostly network in due course.  This primarily aims to
      meet the "High performance and robust" expectation, while slowly
      evolving to meet the "Early adopter of production-ready IETF
      standards" expectation.

   *eduroam*.  For existing eduroam users.  Eduroam is an international
      roaming service for users in research, higher education and
      further education.  It provides researchers, teachers, and
      students network access when visiting an institution other than
      their own.  Users are authenticated with credentials from their
      home institution, regardless of the location of the eduroam access
      point.  This is implemented to support the "Low friction"
      expectation above.



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   *ietf-legacy*.  A hidden SSID for those with old devices that cannot
      connect to the main *ietf* SSID.  This is generally used by a very
      small number of very old participant devices (less than 10).  This
      is implemented to support the "Every participant needs to be able
      to participate fully" expectation above.

   There are also SSIDs used as part of the experimental network,
   described below.

5.3.  Experimental network

   The experimental network comprises multiple physical networks.

5.3.1.  Test SSIDs

   Test SSIDs available across all access points, are generally used for
   users to test new features before they are implemented on the
   production *ietf* SSID.  A recent example is *ietf-ipv6-mostly*,
   which provides an "IPv6-only preferred" network [RFC 8925].  This
   supports the "Early adopter of relevant, production-ready IETF
   standards" expectation above.

   Test SSIDs are also used to test new features that might become new
   production SSIDs, separate from the main production SSID.  For
   example, while not implemented, there was discussion on offering a
   permanent SSID with OpenRoaming, that would have first been a test
   SSID.

5.3.2.  Hackathon network

   The hackathon network is primarily intended to support projects that
   are part of the IETF Hackathon.

   For onsite participants, each of the tables in the hackathon room has
   a wired switch installed and specific networks are created on a per
   table/project basis as needed.  This averages 2-3 networks per
   meeting.  After the IETF Hackathon finishes, those switches with
   custom networks are moved to the Shared Workspace so that work on
   those projects can continue.

   For remote participants, the IETF NOC maintains a custom router image
   that can be used, together with a Datatracker account, to build a
   cheap router that tunnels to the IETF Hackathon network.  This
   service is called HackNet.







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5.3.3.  Local experimental networks

   Very occasionally, a local network is created, either wired and
   wireless, to support experimentation that has to be kept entirely
   separate from the IETF Network.

5.4.  Hotel network

   The IETF NOC works with the hotel IT provider so that a new SSID is
   added to the existing hotel network (*ietf-hotel*) and traffic on
   that is sent to a small IETF NOC router that then backhauls the
   traffic to the conference network.

   Where this backhaul requires a dedicated circuit (as opposed to just
   running a cable) this is always donated by the local provider of
   Internet connectivity, and sometimes includes the installation of new
   fibre just for this purpose.

   Working with the hotel network in this way, often shows up issues
   with installation and configuration of the hotel networking equipment
   that the IETF NOC assists the hotel in addressing.

   The reasoning for this approach is based on the experiences of many
   NOC members (including those who work professionally on conference
   networks) regarding hotel networks:

   *  Captive portals, as regularly used in hotel networks, are a major
      source of problems when a large number of devices go through them.

   *  The IETF NOC regularly discovers issues with hotel networks that
      they fix as part of working with the hotel IT provider.  Examples
      include, all APs set to the same channel, APs on the roof of
      elevators, APs that are not cabled to a controller, etc.

5.5.  Remote participation services

   The remote participation services provider has an onsite team who
   operate and monitor the services throughout the meeting.  The onsite
   equipment needed is partly supplied by the services provider and
   partly by the venue audio/visual services provider.  Generally the
   latter provides the microphones, speakers and sound desk, with
   everything else provided and managed by the remote participation
   services provider.

   The remote participation service itself is hosted in the cloud.






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5.6.  Support

   The professional conference networking company runs a staffed
   helpdesk during the IETF meeting (not all day) and they monitor and
   respond to tickets submitted by email.  These tickets may require
   escalation to a different part of the IETF NOC, such as the
   volunteers or remote participation provider.

   The reasoning for this approach is:

   *  This is a working meeting, not a conference where people go to
      watch presentations, and so a participant unable to work has an
      impact on the IETF as they cannot participate in the standards
      process.

   *  An onsite helpdesk is able to fix things there and then.

   *  The combination of our own network, volunteers in the NOC with
      very high levels of skills, a very technical group that needs
      support and a local helpdesk, enables an exceptional level of
      diagnostic support.  For example, problems diagnosed by the IETF
      NOC have led directly to changes in the codebase of the iPhone.

5.7.  Network data

   In order to meet the expectation of "Good access to network data,
   without compromising privacy" some network and session participation
   data is collected during the meeting but network flows are not
   monitored and recorded.  At the end of the meeting aggregate data is
   extracted and the source data is deleted.

   This data is then made available to the IETF community in a number of
   ways, though these are not widely known about:

   *  Session participation data with geolocation is shown on a public
      dashboard (https://dashboard.meeting.ietf.org/dashboard).

   *  Grafana dashboards on wireless users, overall traffic and packet
      breakdowns, have recently been introduced.

   The IETF NOC used to present at each plenary session on the use of
   the network but this was dropped from the agenda in 2019 or so.









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5.8.  Cost

   The total cost of providing the IETF Network for the three IETF
   Meetings in 2024 was just over $1,000,000, a significant proportion
   of the total cost of over $4,500,000.  This can be broken down into
   the following buckets, which are intentionally coarse-grained in
   order to protect contractual confidentiality:

   *  The cost of the two contractors - the remote participation
      services provider and the professional conference networking
      company, and associated expenses.  The fees charged by these
      companies are confidential.

   *  The cost of the volunteers and overall NOC management, including
      accommodation, expenses, onsite meals and site visits, totalled
      approximately $250,000 in 2024.

   *  The cost of shipping the equipment.  Approximately $70,000 over
      the year.

   The equipment and circuits are almost all donated by sponsors and so
   these costs are excluded from the above costs.

6.  Meeting networks at other meetings

   The following two examples of meeting networks at other meetings,
   NANOG and W3C, have been chosen to show two different models for
   meeting networks from the IETF model.  The W3C model is quite
   different from the IETF and the NANOG model is somewhere in the
   middle.  The information presented has been checked with relevant
   organisation.

   Neither are exact matches to the IETF.  For example, while NANOG
   meets three times a year those meetings are solely in North America
   and while W3C meets globally, it only has a plenary meeting once a
   year.  While both are hybrid meetings, both have a more limited set
   of remote participation services than the IETF.

6.1.  NANOG

   The network at NANOG meetings is provided in a similar way to the
   IETF network with a new network (APs, controllers, switches) fitted
   by a professional conference networking company, bypassing the venue
   network.  However, the equipment shipped is much smaller and much
   cheaper to ship as less of it is enterprise-grade.






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   The Hotel Network however, is the existing hotel network with no
   modification or enhancement.  NANOG does not rely on the hotel's
   existing network at all.  NANOG looks for available spare fiber into
   the communications room and if the hotel doesn't have any, then NANOG
   coordinates with a local ISP to have it installed as a Network
   Sponsor.  In some cases, the hotel has fibre they can use (if they
   don't have any) and the provider might even add a commercial client.

   The professional conference networking company operates the whole
   network, there is no equivalent of the IETF NOC volunteers.

6.2.  W3C

   The W3C uses the venue network for the meeting network, but works
   with the venue for some months before the meeting, testing it and
   helping them fix any issues that would affect its performance.  They
   often contract for additional bandwidth above what their Internet
   provider normally serves to the venue.  The quality of the existing
   network and the willingness of the venue to work with them are
   important factors in venue selection.

   Venue staff manage the network, for a fee, and no W3C staff or
   professional conference networking company are employed to do so.

   A/V hardware is provided and managed by W3C staff.

   The network has received among the highest scores within the
   logistics ratings in the feedback surveys for recent annual W3C
   Conferences (TPAC meetings):

   *  In 2024 a score of 4.48 out of 5

   *  In 2023 a score of 4.54 out of 5

   *  In 2022 a score of 4.51 out of 5

7.  Areas of disagreement

   There are a number of areas of disagreement within the community
   about the required purposes and attributes of the IETF Network and
   how it is delivered.  Specific disagreements include:

   1.  If the networks installed in meeting venues can meet the
       requirements for a conference network, including the required
       attributes.

   2.  If all the requirements for the hotel network necessary.




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       a.  If so, then if the networks installed in meeting hotels meet
           those requirements, including the required attributes.

   3.  If the IETF Network should support an experimental network.

       a.  If so, then if it should support the same three physical
           networks described above.

   4.  If the IETF Network should be an early adopter of relevant,
       production-ready IETF standards.

   5.  If the IETF Network should support old (legacy) equipment beyond
       what might be commonly supported.

       a.  If so, then what should be the minimum threshold of supported
           equipment.

   6.  If the current provision of network data provides good access to
       network data, without compromising privacy.

8.  Next steps

   As noted above, the IETF LLC is unclear on what the path is to
   resolve these disagreements.  This is important because they get to
   the heart of the requirements for the IETF Network and the resulting
   provision of that network.  The main area of uncertainty is whether
   this is a community matter that requires a community-led process to
   determine an outcome such as an RFC, or this is for the IETF LLC to
   lead on and make decisions through its normal consultative processes.

9.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no request to IANA.

10.  Security Considerations

   This document should not affect the security of the Internet.

11.  References

11.1.  Informative References

   [BCP205]   Best Current Practice 205,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp205>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:






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              Sheffer, Y. and A. Farrel, "Improving Awareness of Running
              Code: The Implementation Status Section", BCP 205,
              RFC 7942, DOI 10.17487/RFC7942, July 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7942>.

   [BCP226]   Best Current Practice 226,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp226>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Lear, E., Ed., "IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection
              Process", BCP 226, RFC 8718, DOI 10.17487/RFC8718,
              February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8718>.

              Krishnan, S., "High-Level Guidance for the Meeting Policy
              of the IETF", BCP 226, RFC 8719, DOI 10.17487/RFC8719,
              February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8719>.

              Duke, M., "Considerations for Cancellation of IETF
              Meetings", BCP 226, RFC 9137, DOI 10.17487/RFC9137,
              October 2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9137>.

              Daley, J. and S. Turner, "IETF Meeting Venue Requirements
              Review", BCP 226, RFC 9712, DOI 10.17487/RFC9712, January
              2025, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9712>.

Acknowledgements

   Thanks to multiple members of the IETF NOC for their help in ensuring
   the accuracy of this document, particularly Joe Clarke, Sean Croghan,
   Colin Doyle, Con Reilly, Simon Pietro Romano.  Thanks also to Roman
   Danyliw and Victor Kuarsingh for their reviews.

Author's Address

   Jay Daley
   IETF Administration LLC
   1000 N. West St, Ste 1200
   Wilmington, DE 19801
   United States of America
   Email: jay@staff.ietf.org











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