[Mep-dev] Conceptual Block Diagram for review

[Timothy J. Salo]

A few quick comments on the conceptual diagrams follow.

It would be really nice to start attaching paragraphs to
the boxes and arrows.  This might really move the discussions
forward.

What are the "Samples" that are generated by the ADC in the
outdoor unit?  In particular, what is the sample rate and
how many bits will each sample contain?  I suspect that these
are important parameters, because they will determine (in part)
the load placed on the Ethernet link between the outdoor unit
and the indoor unit.  I also suspect that the question will
become: Is 100 Mbps Ethernet fast enough, or do we need
1 Gbps Ethernet?  Remember, there will be bidirectional
traffic on this Ethernet link (transmit and receive) and so there
will be some contention.  And, that means jitter.  Do we
care about this jitter?  Will the demodulator simply wait
for a whole block to be received before processing it?

The same question applies for the symbols and associated
data that are sent by the indoor unit to the outdoor unit.
Is jitter a concern?  Or, does the outdoor unit wait for
a whole block to be received before transmitting it?  How
does this interact with the (alleged) media access control
protocol?

What does the "Digital Controller" in the outdoor unit do?

What does the "Digital Controller" in the indoor unit do?

It looks like a protocol operates between the indoor unit
and the outdoor unit (or maybe several).  What functions
must this protocol perform?  What information must be
transferred?

What protocol or protocols are used between the indoor
unit and the "User's PC"?

What do all of the boxes in the indoor unit do?  I'm not
sure that I agree with how functionality appears to be
parsed, but it's really hard to tell until we agree on
what functionality is assigned to which boxes.

I think these diagrams are a great way to start a discussion.
Now, if we can agree on what the boxes and lines mean, we will
have made lots of progress.

-tjs