In the on-going investigation of the LNPA Working Group Slowhorse
Subcommittee  to identify and correct system processing deficiencies, we
have decided that one contributor is the 3X5 tunable timer used by the NPAC
and other downstream systems.  This timer is used when the NPAC does not
receive a response to a broadcast from a service provider's LSMS within a 5
minute time frame.  Two more attempts are made in 5 minute intervals.  Once
three attempts have been made, the association to the service provider's
LSMS is dropped resulting in partial failures.  It is the belief of the
service provider community, as well as the LNPA Working Group, that 5
minutes does not constitute enough time for the response before making
another attempt.  It is also believed that the repetitive retries cause a
strain on system resources which can be a contributor to the service
provider's inability to respond.  Therefore we would like to recommend that
this tunable timer be changed to 1X15.  This will provide 15 minutes of
time to reply for a specific broadcast before a session would be dropped.

This 15 minutes should provide enough time to eliminate the need for retries
which tie up system processing time.  The working group recommends this
change in the NPAC for SOA and LSMS interfaces.  We also recommend that this
change be made during the next maintenance window in February, 2000.

This proposal will be discussed by the PEs in the January LLC meetings and
also socialized in the NPAC Cross Regional meeting on January 27 in San
Antonio.  Please let your respective PEs know of any questions you may have
regarding this proposal.

Charles S. Ryburn   Shelly Shaw
Co-Chairs LNPA Working Group