draft-ramadan-moq-fec-00 | Individual submission | -00 posted 2026-10-14 | 75 pages | Standards Track | Datatracker
Authors
- Omar Ramadan (Blockcast)
Abstract
Defines Forward Error Correction (FEC) for Media over QUIC so that receivers can recover lost packets from redundant repair data carried alongside the source media, without waiting for a retransmission round-trip. The draft specifies catalog-based signaling of FEC configuration, repair-track naming conventions, repair-object formats, and a block profile based on ISO/IEC 23008-1 (MMT). RaptorQ (RFC 6330) is the mandatory-to-implement FEC scheme, with an algorithm registry left open for extensions. The design is aimed at bridging MoQ with broadcast systems — explicitly citing ATSC 3.0 and ARIB STD-B60 compatibility.
Why It Matters
FEC targets delivery paths where retransmission is expensive or impossible — large-fan-out live distribution and, especially, the multicast / broadcast paths this draft’s companions describe. It is the first MoQ document to bring a concrete loss-recovery scheme (RaptorQ) with an explicit broadcast-interop goal into the ecosystem, moving MoQ toward the one-to-many, lossy-channel regime that unicast QUIC’s own loss recovery does not cover.
Key Design
- Repair tracks. Repair symbols travel as their own MoQ track(s) alongside the source media track, discoverable and configured via the catalog rather than inline signaling — a late-joining or selective subscriber can choose whether to pull repair data.
- RaptorQ MTI + registry. RaptorQ (RFC 6330) is mandatory to implement; an algorithm registry permits other FEC schemes without a new document.
- MMT block profile. Repair-block structure reuses the ISO/IEC 23008-1 (MPEG Media Transport) block profile — tying FEC to the same MMT substrate as the companion moq-mmt packaging and moq-multicast delivery drafts.
- Broadcast compatibility. Formats are chosen so a stream protected for ATSC 3.0 / ARIB STD-B60 broadcast can be carried over MoQ (and vice-versa) with the FEC parameters intact.
Relationship to other work
- Part of a three-draft Blockcast cluster (Omar Ramadan, 2026-10-14). Posted the same day as [[moq-mmt|
draft-ramadan-moq-mmt-00]] (MMT packaging) and [[moq-multicast|draft-ramadan-moq-multicast-00]] (multicast delivery + endpoint discovery). The three are interdependent: MMT provides the container, multicast the delivery path, and FEC the loss recovery for an integrity-unprotected UDP multicast channel. - Broadcast-over-MoQ direction. Complements the MPEG-TS packaging work (moq-msfts, moq-mpegts) by moving MoQ further into broadcast/contribution territory — here on the resilience axis rather than the container axis.
Status
Individual submission — not adopted by the MOQ working group. Posted 2026-10-14; no mailing-list announcement at submission time. See moq-mmt, moq-multicast, moq-transport, moq-msf, catalog-format, discussions-2026-10.