1. Project: IEEE 802.15 Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs)
Submission Title: [Proposals for adding a version number and for the treatment of reserved bits/fields]
Date Submitted: [17 Jan 2005]
Source: [Monique Bourgeois Brown] Company [Motorola, Inc.]
Address [1150 Kifer Road, Sunnyvale, CA 95131, USA]
Voice:[ ],
Re:
Abstract: [Proposals for adding a version number and for the treatment of reserved bits/fields]
Purpose: [To differentiate between current and future versions of x and promote backwards compatibility from 15.4b onwards.]
Notice: This document has been prepared to assist the IEEE It is offered as a basis for discussion and is not binding on the contributing individual(s) or organization(s). The material in this document is subject to change in form and content after further study. The contributor(s) reserve(s) the right to add, amend or withdraw material contained herein.
Release: The contributor acknowledges and accepts that this contribution becomes the property of IEEE and may be made publicly available by
Monique Brown, Motorola, Inc.

2. Origin
These slides came out of discussions on the MAC editing team calls.
Monique Brown, Motorola, Inc.

3. Purpose
To differentiate between current and future versions of x and promote backwards compatibility from 15.4b onwards
Monique Brown, Motorola, Inc.

4. Reserved bits All reserved bits shall be set to 0 upon transmission.
Reserved bits shall be evaluated upon receipt (not ignored).
If a 4b device receives a frame with one or more nonzero reserved bits, the frame shall not be processed further and shall be discarded.
Monique Brown, Motorola, Inc.

5. New version number field
Bits: 0-2 3 4 5 6
7-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
Frame type
Security enabled
Frame pending
ACK request
Intra PAN
Version
number
Dest addr mode
reserved
Source addr mode
Use reserved bits 7-9 of the frame control field to indicate the version number
Let version number 0002 = 15.4 and version number 0012 = 15.4b; version numbers are reserved for future use.
Monique Brown, Motorola, Inc.

6. Reserved values
If a 4b device receives a frame having a field with a reserved value, the frame shall not be processed further and shall be discarded.
Monique Brown, Motorola, Inc.