IEEE PIMRC 2008 WORKSHOP

SocialNets’2008
Mesh Networking: From Technology to Social Impact

15th September 2008
Palais de Festivals, Cannes, France

Program

09.00 - 09.40    Keynote: Sociological Studies on the Uses of ICTs
Christian Licoppe (ENST, FR)

1 Context

We are witnessing a rapid and uncontrolled deployment of cellular wireless networks operating in unlicensed bands of spectrum. Such networks are composed of access points (AP) connected to the Internet, but with seldom exceptions are completely unrelated with each other. This is quite limitative in a time where information technology moves toward the so-called pervasive world, intelligence is pushed from the user to the infrastructure, and “always connected” is an increasing expectation.

The problem we face today is that existing access points operate in a selfish, self-centered, method, as they do not collaborate on the behalf of the users. In other words, access points are virtually isolated from each other, while users could benefit from their cooperation. This created opportunities to companies like FON and Boingo. The natural, user-centric, evolution of this trend would be for users to cooperate forming wireless neighborhood communities, instantiated as a (single) wireless mesh network. A useful lesson we learned from the Internet is that users can cooperate by nature given common interests, as observed for instance through P2P applications. Cooperation in the wireless last mile is then possible if we provide the expected incentives and mechanisms.

One problem is that existing works on wireless mesh networks assume a single administrative entity – that can then take the appropriate decisions to provide end-to-end connectivity between users. While moving to a self-organized, user-centric environment, wireless neighborhood communities will not be centrally managed, which raises problems not previously addressed by the research community. This presents challenges both at the physical and the administrative domains.

2 Workshop goals

In this mesh environment, communication paradigm completely changes: wireless networks are no longer a mere access technology, but form the core of the network so that the current Internet becomes a utility network providing interconnection services. Access points, which are the interface between users and the core network, should be able to quickly learn how to cooperate and thus become active elements in this wireless communication infrastructure. This participation has physical layer, network connectivity, and user interests aspects that need to be taken in consideration.

The goal of this workshop is to help covering cooperation-related aspects of such unmanaged wireless mesh networks. We will solicit papers covering, but not limited to, the following topics:

•  Architectures of community mesh networks
•  Self-organization mechanisms in community mesh networks
•  Lower layer techniques in community mesh networks
•  Spectrum management in community mesh networks
•  Mobility management in community mesh networks
•  Trust, incentives, reputation
•  Application and service design for community networks
•  Social aspects on mesh networking design

3 Organization

In order to achieve excellence, the workshop will only accept top-quality papers, evaluated by an international technical program committee. Paper format will follow the same instructions of IEEE PIMRC. Each paper will be reserved a slot of 30 minutes (20-minute presentation plus 10 minutes for discussion.) Furthermore, the workshop will invite an outstanding researcher to make a one-hour talk on the subject of the workshop.

4 Workshop organizers

4.1 Workshop chairs

•  Workshop chair: Rémy Bayou, European Commission, Belgium
•  TPC co-chair: Serge Fdida, Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6, France
•  TPC co-chair: Rui Aguiar, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
•  Local arrangements: Frederic Vaissade, Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6, France

4.2 Technical program committee members

•  Rui Aguiar, Universidade de Aveiro (TPC co-chair)
•  Serge Fdida, Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (TPC co-chair)
•  Lars Berlemann, Deutsche Telekom, Germany
•  Andrew Campbell, Dartmouth University, USA
•  Luis Correia, Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
•  Christophe Diot, Thomson, France
•  Andrzej Duda, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France
•  Anje Gimmler, Aalborg University, Denmark
•  Edward Knightly, Rice University, USA
•  Stefan Mangold, Swisscom, Switzerland
•  Josep Mangues-Bafalluy, Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya, Spain
•  Ramjee Prasad, Aalborg University, Denmark
•  Bozidar Radunovic, Microsoft Research, UK
•  Catherine Rosenberg, University of Waterloo, Canada
•  Rainer Sauerwein, Siemens AG, Germany
•  Peter Steenkiste, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
•  Leandros Tassiulas, University of Thessaly, Greece
•  Nitin Vaidya, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
•  Ryuji Wakikawa, Keio University, Japan
•  Cedric Westphal, DoCoMo Labs, USA

5 Practical issues

Papers will be submitted IEEE conference format, through the EDAS system (http://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=6359&track=4151&). Deadlines are:

• Paper submission (final paper): 21th April 2008
• Acceptance notification: 15th May 2008
• Final paper submission: 23nd June 2008

At least one author per paper will be expected to register for the workshop.