5.4 IETF

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [5] may be considered as the technical home of IP. It is a large, open, international community of network designers, operators, vendors and researchers concerned with the evolution of the architecture and smooth operation of the Internet. It has developed, and continues to develop, where necessary, the Internet protocol, and its related family of protocols. These include the transmission control protocol (TCP) and the user datagram protocol (UDP) which provide the basic communications infrastructure upon which most IP applications are based today. The IETF operates under the auspices of the Internet Society (ISOC) [6], and is open to any interested individual rather than company or other entity. This aspect sets it apart from other groups within the industry where representation is based upon company or national membership. A second aspect that distinguishes the IETF is its specification development process which is predicated upon the existence of 'rough consensus and running code'. This generally results in the development of specifications being implementation led.

The actual technical work of the IETF is done in a number of Working Groups (WGs) organised under a number of 'Areas', with each 'Area' dealing with the development of a particular aspect of Internet technology. The current IETF Areas comprise the applications, general, Internet, operations and management, routing, security, sub-IP, transport, and user services. Of these, the majority of work pertinent to VoIP is conducted in the transport area. Area directors, of which there are usually two per Area,...