Without having analysed all the details, I believe Pete's fast start approach has the following advantages compared to the one currently included in H.323 V2: Having only one TCP connection instead of two not only makes H.323 more scalable, it also simplifies the coordination and the handling of race conditions between Q.931 and H.245. It allows re-use of codes written for the ad-hoc conferencing, because it does not change anything to the H.245 procedures, it just moves them to the H.225 control channel. Linh

------------------------------------------------------------ Hong Linh Truong IBM Zurich Research Lab. SMTP: hlt@zurich.ibm.com Saeumerstr. 4 Notes: Hong Linh Truong/Zurich/IBM@Zurich@IBM_INTERNAL CH-8803 Rueschlikon Switzerland phone: +41 1 724 8434 fax: +41 1 724 8955