+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| IR State | <--------> | FO State | <--------> | SO State |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
Decisions about transitions between the various compression states
are taken by the compressor on the basis of:
- variations in packet headers
- positive feedback from decompressor (Acknowledgments -- ACKs)
- negative feedback from decompressor (Negative ACKs -- NACKs)
- periodic timeouts (when operating in unidirectional mode, i.e.,
over simplex channels or when feedback is not enabled)
How transitions are performed is explained in detail in chapter 5 for
each mode of operation.
4.3.1.1. Initialization and Refresh (IR) State
The purpose of the IR state is to initialize the static parts of the
context at the decompressor or to recover after failure. In this
state, the compressor sends complete header information. This
includes all static and nonstatic fields in uncompressed form plus
some additional information.
The compressor stays in the IR state until it is fairly confident
that the decompressor has received the static information correctly.
4.3.1.2. First Order (FO) State
The purpose of the FO state is to efficiently communicate
irregularities in the packet stream. When operating in this state,
the compressor rarely sends information about all dynamic fields, and
the information sent is usually compressed at least partially. Only
a few static fields can be updated. The difference between IR and FO
should therefore be clear.
The compressor enters this state from the IR state, and from the SO
state whenever the headers of the packet stream do not conform to
their previous pattern. It stays in the FO state until it is
confident that the decompressor has acquired all the parameters of
the new pattern. Changes in fields that are always irregular are
communicated in all packets and are therefore part of what is a
uniform pattern.
Some or all packets sent in the FO state carry context updating
information. It is very important to detect corruption of such
packets to avoid erroneous updates and context inconsistencies.
4.3.1.3. Second Order (SO) State
This is the state where compression is optimal. The compressor
enters the SO state when the header to be compressed is completely
predictable given the SN (RTP Sequence Number) and the compressor is
sufficiently confident that the decompressor has acquired all
parameters of the functions from SN to other fields. Correct
decompression of packets sent in the SO state only hinges on correct
decompression of the SN. However, successful decompression also
requires that the information sent in the preceding FO state packets
has been successfully received by the decompressor.
The compressor leaves this state and goes back to the FO state when
the header no longer conforms to the uniform pattern and cannot be
independently compressed on the basis of previous context
information.
4.3.2. Decompressor states
The decompressor starts in its lowest compression state, "No Context"
and gradually transits to higher states. The decompressor state
machine normally never leaves the "Full Context" state once it has
entered this state.
+--------------+ +----------------+ +--------------+
| No Context | <---> | Static Context | <---> | Full Context |
+--------------+ +----------------+ +--------------+
Initially, while working in the "No Context" state, the decompressor
has not yet successfully decompressed a packet. Once a packet has
been decompressed correctly (for example, upon reception of an
initialization packet with static and dynamic information), the
decompressor can transit all the way to the "Full Context" state, and
only upon repeated failures will it transit back to lower states.
However, when that happens it first transits back to the "Static
Context" state. There, reception of any packet sent in the FO state
is normally sufficient to enable transition to the "Full Context"
state again. Only when decompression of several packets sent in the
FO state fails in the "Static Context" state will the decompressor go
all the way back to the "No Context" state.
When state transitions are performed is explained in detail in
chapter 5.
4.4. Modes of operation
The ROHC scheme has three modes of operation, called Unidirectional,
Bidirectional Optimistic, and Bidirectional Reliable mode.
It is important to understand the difference between states, as
described in the previous chapter, and modes. These abstractions are
orthogonal to each other. The state abstraction is the same for all
modes of operation, while the mode controls the logic of state
transitions and what actions to perform in each state.
+----------------------+
| Unidirectional Mode |
| +--+ +--+ +--+ |
| |IR| |FO| |SO| |
| +--+ +--+ +--+ |
+----------------------+
^ ^
/ \
/ \
v v
+----------------------+ +----------------------+
| Optimistic Mode | | Reliable Mode |
| +--+ +--+ +--+ | | +--+ +--+ +--+ |
| |IR| |FO| |SO| | <--------------> | |IR| |FO| |SO| |
| +--+ +--+ +--+ | | +--+ +--+ +--+ |
+----------------------+ +----------------------+
The optimal mode to operate in depends on the characteristics of the
environment of the compression protocol, such as feedback abilities,
error probabilities and distributions, effects of header size
variation, etc. All ROHC implementations MUST implement and support
all three modes of operation. The three modes are briefly described
in the following subsections.
Detailed descriptions of the three modes of operation regarding
compression and decompression logic are given in chapter 5. The mode
transition mechanisms, too, are described in chapter 5.
4.4.1. Unidirectional mode -- U-mode
When in the Unidirectional mode of operation, packets are sent in one
direction only: from compressor to decompressor. This mode therefore
makes ROHC usable over links where a return path from decompressor to
compressor is unavailable or undesirable.
In U-mode, transitions between compressor states are performed only
on account of periodic timeouts and irregularities in the header
field change patterns in the compressed packet stream. Due to the
periodic refreshes and the lack of feedback for initiation of error
recovery, compression in the Unidirectional mode will be less
efficient and have a slightly higher probability of loss propagation
compared to any of the Bidirectional modes.
Compression with ROHC MUST start in the Unidirectional mode.
Transition to any of the Bidirectional modes can be performed as soon
as a packet has reached the decompressor and it has replied with a
feedback packet indicating that a mode transition is desired (see
chapter 5).
4.4.2. Bidirectional Optimistic mode -- O-mode
The Bidirectional Optimistic mode is similar to the Unidirectional
mode. The difference is that a feedback channel is used to send
error recovery requests and (optionally) acknowledgments of
significant context updates from decompressor to compressor (not,
however, for pure sequence number updates). Periodic refreshes are
not used in the Bidirectional Optimistic mode.
O-mode aims to maximize compression efficiency and sparse usage of
the feedback channel. It reduces the number of damaged headers
delivered to the upper layers due to residual errors or context
invalidation. The frequency of context invalidation may be higher
than for R-mode, in particular when long loss/error bursts occur.
Refer to section 4.7 for more details.
4.4.3. Bidirectional Reliable mode -- R-mode
The Bidirectional Reliable mode differs in many ways from the
previous two. The most important differences are a more intensive
usage of the feedback channel and a stricter logic at both the
compressor and the decompressor that prevents loss of context
synchronization between compressor and decompressor except for very
high residual bit error rates. Feedback is sent to acknowledge all
context updates, including updates of the sequence number field.
However, not every packet updates the context in Reliable mode.
R-mode aims to maximize robustness against loss propagation and
damage propagation, i.e., minimize the probability of context
invalidation, even under header loss/error burst conditions. It may
have a lower probability of context invalidation than O-mode, but a
larger number of damaged headers may be delivered when the context
actually is invalidated. Refer to section 4.7 for more details.
4.5. Encoding methods
This chapter describes the encoding methods used for header fields.
How the methods are applied to each field (e.g., values of associated
parameters) is specified in section 5.7.
4.5.1. Least Significant Bits (LSB) encoding
Least Significant Bits (LSB) encoding is used for header fields whose
values are usually subject to small changes. With LSB encoding, the
k least significant bits of the field value are transmitted instead
of the original field value, where k is a positive integer. After
receiving k bits, the decompressor derives the original value using a
previously received value as reference (v_ref).
The scheme is guaranteed to be correct if the compressor and the
decompressor each use interpretation intervals
1) in which the original value resides, and
2) in which the original value is the only value that has the
exact same k least significant bits as those transmitted.
The interpretation interval can be described as a function f(v_ref,
k). Let
f(v_ref, k) = [v_ref - p, v_ref + (2^k - 1) - p]
where p is an integer.
<------- interpretation interval (size is 2^k) ------->
|-------------+---------------------------------------|
v_ref - p v_ref v_ref + (2^k-1) - p
The function f has the following property: for any value k, the k
least significant bits will uniquely identify a value in f(v_ref, k).
The parameter p is introduced so that the interpretation interval can
be shifted with respect to v_ref. Choosing a good value for p will
yield a more efficient encoding for fields with certain
characteristics. Below are some examples:
a) For field values that are expected always to increase, p can be
set to -1. The interpretation interval becomes
[v_ref + 1, v_ref + 2^k].
b) For field values that stay the same or increase, p can be set to
0. The interpretation interval becomes [v_ref, v_ref + 2^k - 1].
c) For field values that are expected to deviate only slightly from a
constant value, p can be set to 2^(k-1) - 1. The interpretation
interval becomes [v_ref - 2^(k-1) + 1, v_ref + 2^(k-1)].
d) For field values that are expected to undergo small negative
changes and larger positive changes, such as the RTP TS for video,
or RTP SN when there is misordering, p can be set to 2^(k-2) - 1.
The interval becomes [v_ref - 2^(k-2) + 1, v_ref + 3 * 2^(k-2)],
i.e., 3/4 of the interval is used for positive changes.
The following is a simplified procedure for LSB compression and
decompression; it is modified for robustness and damage propagation
protection in the next subsection:
1) The compressor (decompressor) always uses v_ref_c (v_ref_d), the
last value that has been compressed (decompressed), as v_ref;
2) When compressing a value v, the compressor finds the minimum value
of k such that v falls into the interval f(v_ref_c, k). Call this
function k = g(v_ref_c, v). When only a few distinct values of k
are possible, for example due to limitations imposed by packet
formats (see section 5.7), the compressor will instead pick the
smallest k that puts v in the interval f(v_ref_c, k).
3) When receiving m LSBs, the decompressor uses the interpretation
interval f(v_ref_d, m), called interval_d. It picks as the
decompressed value the one in interval_d whose LSBs match the
received m bits.
Note that the values to be encoded have a finite range; for example,
the RTP SN ranges from 0 to 0xFFFF. When the SN value is close to 0
or 0xFFFF, the interpretation interval can straddle the wraparound
boundary between 0 and 0xFFFF.
The scheme is complicated by two factors: packet loss between the
compressor and decompressor, and transmission errors undetected by
the lower layer. In the former case, the compressor and decompressor
will lose the synchronization of v_ref, and thus also of the
interpretation interval. If v is still covered by the
intersection(interval_c, interval_d), the decompression will be
correct. Otherwise, incorrect decompression will result. The next
section will address this issue further.
In the case of undetected transmission errors, the corrupted LSBs
will give an incorrectly decompressed value that will later be used
as v_ref_d, which in turn is likely to lead to damage propagation.
This problem is addressed by using a secure reference, i.e., a
reference value whose correctness is verified by a protecting CRC.
Consequently, the procedure 1) above is modified as follows:
1) a) the compressor always uses as v_ref_c the last value that has
been compressed and sent with a protecting CRC.
b) the decompressor always uses as v_ref_d the last correct
value, as verified by a successful CRC.
Note that in U/O-mode, 1) b) is modified so that if decompression of
the SN fails using the last verified SN reference, another
decompression attempt is made using the last but one verified SN
reference. This procedure mitigates damage propagation when a small
CRC fails to detect a damaged value. See section 5.3.2.2.3 for
further details.
4.5.2. Window-based LSB encoding (W-LSB encoding)
This section describes how to modify the simplified algorithm in
4.5.1 to achieve robustness.
The compressor may not be able to determine the exact value of
v_ref_d that will be used by the decompressor for a particular value
v, since some candidates for v_ref_d may have been lost or damaged.
However, by using feedback or by making reasonable assumptions, the
compressor can limit the candidate set. The compressor then
calculates k such that no matter which v_ref_d in the candidate set
the decompressor uses, v is covered by the resulting interval_d.
Since the decompressor always uses as the reference the last received
value where the CRC succeeded, the compressor maintains a sliding
window containing the candidates for v_ref_d. The sliding window is
initially empty. The following operations are performed on the
sliding window by the compressor:
1) After sending a value v (compressed or uncompressed) protected by
a CRC, the compressor adds v to the sliding window.
2) For each value v being compressed, the compressor chooses k =
max(g(v_min, v), g(v_max, v)), where v_min and v_max are the
minimum and maximum values in the sliding window, and g is the
function defined in the previous section.
3) When the compressor is sufficiently confident that a certain value
v and all values older than v will not be used as reference by the
decompressor, the window is advanced by removing those values
(including v). The confidence may be obtained by various means.
In R-mode, an ACK from the decompressor implies that values older
than the ACKed one can be removed from the sliding window. In
U/O-mode there is always a CRC to verify correct decompression,
and a sliding window with a limited maximum width is used. The
window width is an implementation dependent optimization
parameter.
Note that the decompressor follows the procedure described in the
previous section, except that in R-mode it MUST ACK each header
received with a succeeding CRC (see also section 5.5).
4.5.3. Scaled RTP Timestamp encoding
The RTP Timestamp (TS) will usually not increase by an arbitrary
number from packet to packet. Instead, the increase is normally an
integral multiple of some unit (TS_STRIDE). For example, in the case
of audio, the sample rate is normally 8 kHz and one voice frame may
cover 20 ms. Furthermore, each voice frame is often carried in one
RTP packet. In this case, the RTP increment is always n * 160 (=
8000 * 0.02), for some integer n. Note that silence periods have no
impact on this, as the sample clock at the source normally keeps
running without changing either frame rate or frame boundaries.
In the case of video, there is usually a TS_STRIDE as well when the
video frame level is considered. The sample rate for most video
codecs is 90 kHz. If the video frame rate is fixed, say, to 30
frames/second, the TS will increase by n * 3000 (= n * 90000 / 30)
between video frames. Note that a video frame is often divided into
several RTP packets to increase robustness against packet loss. In
this case several RTP packets will carry the same TS.
When using scaled RTP Timestamp encoding, the TS is downscaled by a
factor of TS_STRIDE before compression. This saves
floor(log2(TS_STRIDE))
bits for each compressed TS. TS and TS_SCALED satisfy the following
equality:
TS = TS_SCALED * TS_STRIDE + TS_OFFSET
TS_STRIDE is explicitly, and TS_OFFSET implicitly, communicated to
the decompressor. The following algorithm is used:
1. Initialization: The compressor sends to the decompressor the value
of TS_STRIDE and the absolute value of one or several TS fields.
The latter are used by the decompressor to initialize TS_OFFSET to
(absolute value) modulo TS_STRIDE. Note that TS_OFFSET is the
same regardless of which absolute value is used, as long as the
unscaled TS value does not wrap around; see 4) below.
2. Compression: After initialization, the compressor no longer
compresses the original TS values. Instead, it compresses the
downscaled values: TS_SCALED = TS / TS_STRIDE. The compression
method could be either W-LSB encoding or the timer-based encoding
described in the next section.
3. Decompression: When receiving the compressed value of TS_SCALED,
the decompressor first derives the value of the original
TS_SCALED. The original RTP TS is then calculated as TS =
TS_SCALED * TS_STRIDE + TS_OFFSET.
4. Offset at wraparound: Wraparound of the unscaled 32-bit TS will
invalidate the current value of TS_OFFSET used in the equation
above. For example, let us assume TS_STRIDE = 160 = 0xA0 and the
current TS = 0xFFFFFFF0. TS_OFFSET is then 0x50 = 80. Then if
the next RTP TS = 0x00000130 (i.e., the increment is 160 * 2 =
320), the new TS_OFFSET should be 0x00000130 modulo 0xA0 = 0x90 =
144. The compressor is not required to re-initialize TS_OFFSET at
wraparound. Instead, the decompressor MUST detect wraparound of
the unscaled TS (which is trivial) and update TS_OFFSET to
TS_OFFSET = (Wrapped around unscaled TS) modulo TS_STRIDE
5. Interpretation interval at wraparound: Special rules are needed
for the interpretation interval of the scaled TS at wraparound,
since the maximum scaled TS, TSS_MAX, (0xFFFFFFFF / TS_STRIDE) may
not have the form 2^m - 1. For example, when TS_STRIDE is 160,
the scaled TS is at most 26843545 which has LSBs 10011001. The
wraparound boundary between the TSS_MAX may thus not correspond to
a natural boundary between LSBs.
interpretation interval
|<------------------------------>|
unused scaled TS
------------|--------------|---------------------->
TSS_MAX zero
When TSS_MAX is part of the interpretation interval, a number of
unused values are inserted into it after TSS_MAX such that their
LSBs follow naturally upon each other. For example, for TS_STRIDE
= 160 and k = 4, values corresponding to the LSBs 1010 through
1111 are inserted. The number of inserted values depends on k and
the LSBs of the maximum scaled TS. The number of valid values in
the interpretation interval should be high enough to maintain
robustness. This can be ensured by the following rule:
Let a be the number of LSBs needed if there was no
wraparound, and let b be the number of LSBs needed to
disambiguate between TSS_MAX and zero where the a LSBs of
TSS_MAX are set to zero. The number of LSB bits to send
while TSS_MAX or zero is part of the interpretation interval
is b.
This scaling method can be applied to many frame-based codecs.
However, the value of TS_STRIDE might change during a session, for
example as a result of adaptation strategies. If that happens, the
unscaled TS is compressed until re-initialization of the new
TS_STRIDE and TS_OFFSET is completed.
4.5.4. Timer-based compression of RTP Timestamp
The RTP Timestamp [RFC1889] is defined to identify the number of the
first sample used to generate the payload. When 1) RTP packets carry
payloads corresponding to a fixed sampling interval, 2) the sampling
is done at a constant rate, and 3) packets are generated in lock-step
with sampling, then the timestamp value will closely approximate a
linear function of the time of day. This is the case for
conversational media, such as interactive speech. The linear ratio
is determined by the source sample rate. The linear pattern can be
complicated by packetization (e.g., in the case of video where a
video frame usually corresponds to several RTP packets) or frame
rearrangement (e.g., B-frames are sent out-of-order by some video
codecs).
With a fixed sample rate of 8 kHz, 20 ms in the time domain is
equivalent to an increment of 160 in the unscaled TS domain, and to
an increment of 1 in the scaled TS domain with TS_STRIDE = 160.
As a consequence, the (scaled) TS of headers arriving at the
decompressor will be a linear function of time of day, with some
deviation due to the delay jitter (and the clock inaccuracies)
between the source and the decompressor. In normal operation, i.e.,
no crashes or failures, the delay jitter will be bounded to meet the
requirements of conversational real-time traffic. Hence, by using a
local clock the decompressor can obtain an approximation of the
(scaled) TS in the header to be decompressed by considering its
arrival time. The approximation can then be refined with the k LSBs
of the (scaled) TS carried in the header. The value of k required to
ensure correct decompression is a function of the jitter between the
source and the decompressor.
If the compressor knows the potential jitter introduced between
compressor and decompressor, it can determine k by using a local
clock to estimate jitter in packet arrival times, or alternatively it
can use a fixed k and discard packets arriving too much out of time.
The advantages of this scheme include:
a) The size of the compressed TS is constant and small. In
particular, it does NOT depend on the length of silence intervals.
This is in contrast to other TS compression techniques, which at
the beginning of a talkspurt require sending a number of bits
dependent on the duration of the preceding silence interval.
b) No synchronization is required between the clock local to the
compressor and the clock local to the decompressor.
Note that although this scheme can be made to work using both scaled
and unscaled TS, in practice it is always combined with scaled TS
encoding because of the less demanding requirement on the clock
resolution, e.g., 20 ms instead of 1/8 ms. Therefore, the algorithm
described below assumes that the clock-based encoding scheme operates
on the scaled TS. The case of unscaled TS would be similar, with
changes to scale factors.
The major task of the compressor is to determine the value of k. Its
sliding window now contains not only potential reference values for
the TS but also their times of arrival at the compressor.
1) The compressor maintains a sliding window
{(T_j, a_j), for each header j that can be used as a reference},
where T_j is the scaled TS for header j, and a_j is the arrival
time of header j. The sliding window serves the same purpose as
the W-LSB sliding window of section 4.5.2.
2) When a new header n arrives with T_n as the scaled TS, the
compressor notes the arrival time a_n. It then calculates
Max_Jitter_BC =
max {|(T_n - T_j) - ((a_n - a_j) / TIME_STRIDE)|,
for all headers j in the sliding window},
where TIME_STRIDE is the time interval equivalent to one
TS_STRIDE, e.g., 20 ms. Max_Jitter_BC is the maximum observed
jitter before the compressor, in units of TS_STRIDE, for the
headers in the sliding window.
3) k is calculated as
k = ceiling(log2(2 * J + 1),
where J = Max_Jitter_BC + Max_Jitter_CD + 2.
Max_Jitter_CD is the upper bound of jitter expected on the
communication channel between compressor and decompressor (CD-CC).
It depends only on the characteristics of CD-CC.
The constant 2 accounts for the quantization error introduced by
the clocks at the compressor and decompressor, which can be +/-1.
Note that the calculation of k follows the compression algorithm
described in section 4.5.1, with p = 2^(k-1) - 1.
4) The sliding window is subject to the same window operations as in
section 4.5.2, 1) and 3), except that the values added and removed
are paired with their arrival times.
Decompressor:
1) The decompressor uses as its reference header the last correctly
(as verified by CRC) decompressed header. It maintains the pair
(T_ref, a_ref), where T_ref is the scaled TS of the reference
header, and a_ref is the arrival time of the reference header.
2) When receiving a compressed header n at time a_n, the
approximation of the original scaled TS is calculated as:
T_approx = T_ref + (a_n - a_ref) / TIME_STRIDE.
3) The approximation is then refined by the k least significant bits
carried in header n, following the decompression algorithm of
section 4.5.1, with p = 2^(k-1) - 1.
Note: The algorithm does not assume any particular pattern in the
packets arriving at the compressor, i.e., it tolerates reordering
before the compressor and nonincreasing RTP Timestamp behavior.
Note: Integer arithmetic is used in all equations above. If
TIME_STRIDE is not equal to an integral number of clock ticks,
time must be normalized such that TIME_STRIDE is an integral
number of clock ticks. For example, if a clock tick is 20 ms and
TIME_STRIDE is 30 ms, (a_n - a_ref) in 2) can be multiplied by 3
and TIME_STRIDE can have the value 2.
Note: The clock resolution of the compressor or decompressor can
be worse than TIME_STRIDE, in which case the difference, i.e.,
actual resolution - TIME_STRIDE, is treated as additional jitter
in the calculation of k.
Note: The clock resolution of the decompressor may be communicated
to the compressor using the CLOCK feedback option.
Note: The decompressor may observe the jitter and report this to
the compressor using the JITTER feedback option. The compressor
may use this information to refine its estimate of Max_Jitter_CD.
4.5.5. Offset IP-ID encoding
As all IPv4 packets have an IP Identifier to allow for fragmentation,
ROHC provides for transparent compression of this ID. There is no
explicit support in ROHC for the IPv6 fragmentation header, so there
is never a need to discuss IP IDs outside the context of IPv4.
This section assumes (initially) that the IPv4 stack at the source
host assigns IP-ID according to the value of a 2-byte counter which
is increased by one after each assignment to an outgoing packet.
Therefore, the IP-ID field of a particular IPv4 packet flow will
increment by 1 from packet to packet except when the source has
emitted intermediate packets not belonging to that flow.
For such IPv4 stacks, the RTP SN will increase by 1 for each packet
emitted and the IP-ID will increase by at least the same amount.
Thus, it is more efficient to compress the offset, i.e., (IP-ID - RTP
SN), instead of IP-ID itself.
The remainder of section 4.5.5 describes how to compress/decompress
the sequence of offsets using W-LSB encoding/decoding, with p = 0
(see section 4.5.1). All IP-ID arithmetic is done using unsigned
16-bit quantities, i.e., modulo 2^16.
Compressor:
The compressor uses W-LSB encoding (section 4.5.2) to compress a
sequence of offsets
Offset_i = ID_i - SN_i,
where ID_i and SN_i are the values of the IP-ID and RTP SN of
header i. The sliding window contains such offsets and not the
values of header fields, but the rules for adding and deleting
offsets from the window otherwise follow section 4.5.2.
Decompressor:
The reference header is the last correctly (as verified by CRC)
decompressed header.
When receiving a compressed packet m, the decompressor calculates
Offset_ref = ID_ref - SN_ref, where ID_ref and SN_ref are the
values of IP-ID and RTP SN in the reference header, respectively.
Then W-LSB decoding is used to decompress Offset_m, using the
received LSBs in packet m and Offset_ref. Note that m may contain
zero LSBs for Offset_m, in which case Offset_m = Offset_ref.
Finally, the IP-ID for packet m is regenerated as
IP-ID for m = decompressed SN of packet m + Offset_m
Network byte order:
Some IPv4 stacks do use a counter to generate IP ID values as
described, but do not transmit the contents of this counter in
network byte order, but instead send the two octets reversed. In
this case, the compressor can compress the IP-ID field after
swapping the bytes. Consequently, the decompressor also swaps the
bytes of the IP-ID after decompression to regenerate the original
IP-ID. This requires that the compressor and the decompressor
synchronize on the byte order of the IP-ID field using the NBO or
NBO2 flag (see section 5.7).
Random IP Identifier:
Some IPv4 stacks generate the IP Identifier values using a
pseudo-random number generator. While this may provide some
security benefits, it makes it pointless to attempt compressing
the field. Therefore, the compressor should detect such random
behavior of the field. After detection and synchronization with
the decompressor using the RND or RND2 flag, the field is sent
as-is in its entirety as additional octets after the compressed
header.
4.5.6. Self-describing variable-length values
The values of TS_STRIDE and a few other compression parameters can
vary widely. TS_STRIDE can be 160 for voice and 90 000 for 1 f/s
video. To optimize the transfer of such values, a variable number of
octets is used to encode them. The number of octets used is
determined by the first few bits of the first octet:
First bit is 0: 1 octet.
7 bits transferred.
Up to 127 decimal.
Encoded octets in hexadecimal: 00 to 7F
First bits are 10: 2 octets.
14 bits transferred.
Up to 16 383 decimal.
Encoded octets in hexadecimal: 80 00 to BF FF
First bits are 110: 3 octets.
21 bits transferred.
Up to 2 097 151 decimal.
Encoded octets in hexadecimal: C0 00 00 to DF FF FF
First bits are 111: 4 octets.
29 bits transferred.
Up to 536 870 911 decimal.
Encoded octets in hexadecimal: E0 00 00 00 to FF FF FF FF
4.5.7. Encoded values across several fields in compressed headers
When a compressed header has an extension, pieces of an encoded value
can be present in more than one field. When an encoded value is
split over several fields in this manner, the more significant bits
of the value are closer to the beginning of the header. If the
number of bits available in compressed header fields exceeds the
number of bits in the value, the most significant field is padded
with zeroes in its most significant bits.
For example, an unscaled TS value can be transferred using an UOR-2
header (see section 5.7) with an extension of type 3. The Tsc bit of
the extension is then unset (zero) and the variable length TS field
of the extension is 4 octets, with 29 bits available for the TS (see
section 4.5.6). The UOR-2 TS field will contain the three most
significant bits of the unscaled TS, and the 4-octet TS field in the
extension will contain the remaining 29 bits.
4.6. Errors caused by residual errors
ROHC is designed under the assumption that packets can be damaged
between the compressor and decompressor, and that such damaged
packets can be delivered to the decompressor ("residual errors").
Residual errors may damage the SN in compressed headers. Such damage
will cause generation of a header which upper layers may not be able
to distinguish from a correct header. When the compressed header
contains a CRC, the CRC will catch the bad header with a probability
dependent on the size of the CRC. When ROHC does not detect the bad
header, it will be delivered to upper layers.
Damage is not confined to the SN:
a) Damage to packet type indication bits can cause a header to be
interpreted as having a different packet type.
b) Damage to CID information may cause a packet to be interpreted
according to another context and possibly also according to
another profile. Damage to CIDs will be more harmful when a large
part of the CID space is being used, so that it is likely that the
damaged CID corresponds to an active context.
c) Feedback information can also be subject to residual errors, both
when feedback is piggybacked and when it is sent in separate ROHC
packets. ROHC uses sanity checks and adds CRCs to vital feedback
information to allow detection of some damaged feedback.
Note that context damage can also result in generation of
incorrect headers; section 4.7 elaborates further on this.
4.7. Impairment considerations
Impairments to headers can be classified into the following types:
(1) the lower layer was not able to decode the packet and did not
deliver it to ROHC,
(2) the lower layer was able to decode the packet, but discarded
it because of a detected error,
(3) ROHC detected an error in the generated header and discarded
the packet, or
(4) ROHC did not detect that the regenerated header was damaged
and delivered it to upper layers.
Impairments cause loss or damage of individual headers. Some
impairment scenarios also cause context invalidation, which in turn
results in loss propagation and damage propagation. Damage
propagation and undetected residual errors both contribute to the
number of damaged headers delivered to upper layers. Loss
propagation and impairments resulting in loss or discarding of single
packets both contribute to the packet loss seen by upper layers.
Examples of context invalidating scenarios are:
(a) Impairment of type (4) on the forward channel, causing the
decompressor to update its context with incorrect information;
(b) Loss/error burst of pattern update headers: Impairments of
types (1),(2) and (3) on consecutive pattern update headers; a
pattern update header is a header carrying a new pattern
information, e.g., at the beginning of a new talk spurt; this
causes the decompressor to lose the pattern update
information;
(c) Loss/error burst of headers: Impairments of types (1),(2) and
(3) on a number of consecutive headers that is large enough to
cause the decompressor to lose the SN synchronization;
(d) Impairment of type (4) on the feedback channel which mimics a
valid ACK and makes the compressor update its context;
(e) a burst of damaged headers (3) erroneously triggers the "k-
out-of-n" rule for detecting context invalidation, which
results in a NACK/update sequence during which headers are
discarded.
Scenario (a) is mitigated by the CRC carried in all context updating
headers. The larger the CRC, the lower the chance of context
invalidation caused by (a). In R-mode, the CRC of context updating
headers is always 7 bits or more. In U/O-mode, it is usually 3 bits
and sometimes 7 or 8 bits.
Scenario (b) is almost completely eliminated when the compressor
ensures through ACKs that no context updating headers are lost, as in
R-mode.
Scenario (c) is almost completely eliminated when the compressor
ensures through ACKs that the decompressor will always detect the SN
wraparound, as in R-mode. It is also mitigated by the SN repair
mechanisms in U/O-mode.
Scenario (d) happens only when the compressor receives a damaged
header that mimics an ACK of some header present in the W-LSB window,
say ACK of header 2, while in reality header 2 was never received or
accepted by the decompressor, i.e., header 2 was subject to
impairment (1), (2) or (3). The damaged header must mimic the
feedback packet type, the ACK feedback type, and the SN LSBs of some
header in the W-LSB window.
Scenario (e) happens when a burst of residual errors causes the CRC
check to fail in k out of the last n headers carrying CRCs. Large k
and n reduces the probability of scenario (e), but also increases the
number of headers lost or damaged as a consequence of any context
invalidation.
ROHC detects damaged headers using CRCs over the original headers.
The smallest headers in this document either include a 3-bit CRC
(U/O-mode) or do not include a CRC (R-mode). For the smallest
headers, damage is thus detected with a probability of roughly 7/8
for U/O-mode. For R-mode, damage to the smallest headers is not
detected.
All other things (coding scheme at lower layers, etc.) being equal,
the rate of headers damaged by residual errors will be lower when
headers are compressed compared when they are not, since fewer bits
are transmitted. Consequently, for a given ROHC CRC setup the rate
of incorrect headers delivered to applications will also be reduced.
The above analysis suggests that U/O-mode may be more prone than R-
mode to context invalidation. On the other hand, the CRC present in
all U/O-mode headers continuously screens out residual errors coming
from lower layers, reduces the number of damaged headers delivered to
upper layers when context is invalidated, and permits quick detection
of context invalidation.
R-mode always uses a stronger CRC on context updating headers, but no
CRC in other headers. A residual error on a header which carries no
CRC will result in a damaged header being delivered to upper layers
(4). The number of damaged headers delivered to the upper layers
depends on the ratio of headers with CRC vs. headers without CRC,
which is a compressor parameter.
5. The protocol
5.1. Data structures
The ROHC protocol is based on a number of parameters that form part
of the negotiated channel state and the per-context state. This
section describes some of this state information in an abstract way.
Implementations can use a different structure for and representation
of this state. In particular, negotiation protocols that set up the
per-channel state need to establish the information that constitutes
the negotiated channel state, but it is not necessary to exchange it
in the form described here.
5.1.1. Per-channel parameters
MAX_CID: Nonnegative integer; highest context ID number to be used by
the compressor (note that this parameter is not coupled to, but in
effect further constrained by, LARGE_CIDS).
LARGE_CIDS: Boolean; if false, the short CID representation (0 bytes
or 1 prefix byte, covering CID 0 to 15) is used; if true, the
embedded CID representation (1 or 2 embedded CID bytes covering CID 0
to 16383) is used.
PROFILES: Set of nonnegative integers, each integer indicating a
profile supported by the decompressor. The compressor MUST NOT
compress using a profile not in PROFILES.
FEEDBACK_FOR: Optional reference to a channel in the reverse
direction. If provided, this parameter indicates which channel any
feedback sent on this channel refers to (see 5.7.6.1).
MRRU: Maximum reconstructed reception unit. This is the size of the
largest reconstructed unit in octets that the decompressor is
expected to reassemble from segments (see 5.2.5). Note that this
size includes the CRC. If MRRU is negotiated to be 0, no segment
headers are allowed on the channel.
5.1.2. Per-context parameters, profiles
Per-context parameters are established with IR headers (see section
5.2.3). An IR header contains a profile identifier, which determines
how the rest of the header is to be interpreted. Note that the
profile parameter determines the syntax and semantics of the packet
type identifiers and packet types used in conjunction with a specific
context. This document describes profiles 0x0000, 0x0001, 0x0002,
and 0x0003; further profiles may be defined when ROHC is extended in
the future.
Profile 0x0000 is for sending uncompressed IP packets. See section
5.10.
Profile 0x0001 is for RTP/UDP/IP compression, see sections 5.3
through 5.9.
Profile 0x0002 is for UDP/IP compression, i.e., compression of the
first 12 octets of the UDP payload is not attempted. See section
5.11.
Profile 0x0003 is for ESP/IP compression, i.e., compression of the
header chain up to and including the first ESP header, but not
subsequent subheaders. See section 5.12.
Initially, all contexts are in no context state, i.e., all packets
referencing this context except IR packets are discarded. If defined
by a "ROHC over X" document, per-channel negotiation can be used to
pre-establish state information for a context (e.g., negotiating
profile 0x0000 for CID 15). Such state information can also be
marked read-only in the negotiation, which would cause the
decompressor to discard any IR packet attempting to modify it.
5.1.3. Contexts and context identifiers
Associated with each compressed flow is a context, which is the state
compressor and decompressor maintain in order to correctly compress
or decompress the headers of the packet stream. Contexts are
identified by a context identifier, CID, which is sent along with
compressed headers and feedback information.
The CID space is distinct for each channel, i.e., CID 3 over channel
A and CID 3 over channel B do not refer to the same context, even if
the endpoints of A and B are the same nodes. In particular, CIDs for
any pairs of forward and reverse channels are not related (forward
and reverse channels need not even have CID spaces of the same size).
Context information is conceptually kept in a table. The context
table is indexed using the CID which is sent along with compressed
headers and feedback information. The CID space can be negotiated to
be either small, which means that CIDs can take the values 0 through
15, or large, which means that CIDs take values between 0 and 2^14 -
1 = 16383. Whether the CID space is large or small is negotiated no
later than when a channel is established.
A small CID with the value 0 is represented using zero bits. A small
CID with a value from 1 to 15 is represented by a four-bit field in
place of a packet type field (Add-CID) plus four more bits. A large
CID is represented using the encoding scheme of section 4.5.6,
limited to two octets.
5.2. ROHC packets and packet types
The packet type indication scheme for ROHC has been designed under
the following constraints:
a) it must be possible to use only a limited number of packet sizes;
b) it must be possible to send feedback information in separate ROHC
packets as well as piggybacked on forward packets;
c) it is desirable to allow elimination of the CID for one packet
stream when few packet streams share a channel;
d) it is anticipated that some packets with large headers may be
larger than the MTU of very constrained lower layers.
These constraints have led to a design which includes
- optional padding,
- a feedback packet type,
- an optional Add-CID octet which provides 4 bits of CID, and
- a simple segmentation and reassembly mechanism.
A ROHC packet has the following general format (in the diagram,
colons ":" indicate that the part is optional):
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
: Padding : variable length
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
: Feedback : 0 or more feedback elements
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
: Header : variable, with CID information
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
: Payload :
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Padding is any number (zero or more) of padding octets. Either of
Feedback or Header must be present.
Feedback elements always start with a packet type indication.
Feedback elements carry internal CID information. Feedback is
described in section 5.2.2.
Header is either a profile-specific header or an IR or IR-DYN header
(see sections 5.2.3 and 5.2.4). Header either
1) does not carry any CID information (indicating CID zero), or
2) includes one Add-CID Octet (see below), or
3) contains embedded CID information of length one or two octets.
Alternatives 1) and 2) apply only to compressed headers in channels
where the CID space is small. Alternative 3) applies only to
compressed headers in channels where the CID space is large.
Padding Octet
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
Add-CID Octet
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 1 1 1 0 | CID |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
CID: 0x1 through 0xF indicates CIDs 1 through 15.
Note: The Padding Octet looks like an Add-CID octet for CID 0.
Header either starts with a packet type indication or has a packet
type indication immediately following an Add-CID Octet. All Header
packet types have the following general format (in the diagram,
slashes "/" indicate variable length):
0 x-1 x 7
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
: Add-CID octet : if (CID 1-15) and (small CIDs)
+---+--- --- --- ---+--- --- ---+
| type indication | body | 1 octet (8-x bits of body)
+---+--- ---+---+---+--- --- ---+
: :
/ 0, 1, or 2 octets of CID / 1 or 2 octets if (large CIDs)
: :
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
/ body / variable length
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
The large CID, if present, is encoded according to section 4.5.6.
5.2.1. ROHC feedback
Feedback carries information from decompressor to compressor. The
following principal kinds of feedback are supported. In addition to
the kind of feedback, other information may be included in profile-
specific feedback information.
ACK : Acknowledges successful decompression of a packet,
which means that the context is up-to-date with a high
probability.
NACK : Indicates that the dynamic context of the
decompressor is out of sync. Generated when several
successive packets have failed to be decompressed
correctly.
STATIC-NACK : Indicates that the static context of the decompressor
is not valid or has not been established.
It is anticipated that feedback to the compressor can be realized in
many ways, depending on the properties of the particular lower layer.
The exact details of how feedback is realized is to be specified in a
"ROHC over X" document, for each lower layer X in question. For
example, feedback might be realized using
1) lower-layer specific mechanisms
2) a dedicated feedback-only channel, realized for example by the
lower layer providing a way to indicate that a packet is a
feedback packet
3) a dedicated feedback-only channel, where the timing of the
feedback provides information about which compressed packet caused
the feedback
4) interspersing of feedback packets among normal compressed packets
going in the same direction as the feedback (lower layers do not
indicate feedback)
5) piggybacking of feedback information in compressed packets going
in the same direction as the feedback (this technique may reduce
the per-feedback overhead)
6) interspersing and piggybacking on the same channel, i.e., both 4)
and 5).
Alternatives 1-3 do not place any particular requirements on the ROHC
packet type scheme. Alternatives 4-6 do, however. The ROHC packet
type scheme has been designed to allow alternatives 4-6 (these may be
used for example over PPP):
a) The ROHC scheme provides a feedback packet type. The packet type
is able to carry variable-length feedback information.
b) The feedback information sent on a particular channel is passed
to, and interpreted by, the compressor associated with feedback on
that channel. Thus, the feedback information must contain CID