IEEE 802.15.4 addressing

Hi, now that we start to get in IEEE 802.15.4/6LoWPAN territory with netdev/netapi [1-3] I wonder if it makes sense to not have 2 (16-bit/64-bit) but 3 addressing modes:

  • 16-bit short address
  • 32-bit (16-bit PAN ID + 16-bit short address) as originally introduced to RIOT, but somehow ignored over since then in [4]
  • 64-bit long address.

As far as I read [5], there is not really any use-case for PAN ID + long address.

The API proposed in netdev/netapi need no change for this. It’s rather a question what the drivers and 6LoWPAN should accept and generate as addressing formats for packets.

Tell me what you think.

Cheers, Martine

[1] https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/pull/2614 [2] https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/pull/2627 [3] https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/pull/2695 [4] https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/pull/925 [5] http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.15.4-2011.pdf