All the stuff in the "sub-ip" area is a combination of applications running over IP and lower-layer services over which IP (and presumably anything else -- after all what do the "MP" stand for in MPLS?) runs. The logic which directs that these things be standardized in the IETF could be used to direct that _any_ lower-layer technology be standardized in the IETF. There is also logic that says that these technologies are "important" to the Internet and, in order to ensure that they "do the right thing", they should be standardized in the IETF. This logic is also in error. First, these efforts have evolved into some of the worst and most hideous examples of bloatware that I've ever seen. Second, there are many technologies that are important to the operation of the Internet -- such as the spacing of the screw holes in the racks into which the equipment is mounted -- yet we don't standardize them... Frank Kastenholz