Internet Engineering Task Force

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." Abstract This document provides advice to the designers of digital communication equipment, link-layer protocols and packet-switched subnetworks (collectively referred to as subnetworks) who wish to support the Internet protocols but who may be unfamiliar with Internet architecture and the implications of their design choices on the performance and efficiency of the Internet.