*** CALL FOR PAPERS: IEEE Communications Magazine ***

Recent Advances in Technologies for Extremely Dense Wireless Networks

** DESCRIPTION

The ever growing demand from users of mobile networks, in terms of both capacity and coverage, is driving the current (e.g., IEEE 802.11, LTE, WiMAX) and near-future (e.g., LTE-Advanced, IEEE 802.11ac/ad/af and High Efficiency WLAN - HEW) technologies alike towards their limits. The more sustainable solution to the 5G promise of true ubiquitous mobile broadband is to deploy very dense wireless networks, which we call DenseNets. Intuition based on experience suggests that DenseNets will encompass significant overlapping, and possibly non-interoperable technologies, which can be seen as an evolution of today’s heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Similar to HetNet but only more severe, DenseNets will have to face a multitude of techno-economic challenges such as backhaul availability, very low cost of small base stations, operation, administration and management (OAM), Machine Type Communications (MTC), etc.

Some of the relevant issues already identified in the DenseNets scenarios include the nonlinear characteristics of the achieved throughput and energy consumption. As an increased number of cells are being deployed, the effect of the interference becomes dominant, resulting on an overall throughput which is not linear with the number of cells. Similar nonlinear effects on energy efficiency have been observed due to the need for the equipment to be continuously serving high demand applications.

In order to overcome these problems, a new family of solutions characterized by the use of cooperative approaches is required to take advantage of the new opportunities brought by the DenseNets scenarios. This opens a broad spectrum of research directions, standardisation paths, and market opportunities, which will involve the relevant communities in both academia and industry in the forthcoming years.

The goal of this feature topic is to publish original material, either research or review articles, on the topic of extremely dense wireless networks (DenseNets). All material should be comprehensible and accessible to non-expert readers.

** TOPICS OF INTEREST

- Exploration of the fundamental limits of wireless networks (scalability, capacity, ...)
- Real life experiences with DenseNets (deployments, large scale testbeds, ...)
- Novel business models, requirements, use cases, and applications
- Analysis and simulation of extremely dense wireless networks
- Advanced mobility management solutions within DenseNets resulting in extremely fast handover (Distributed Mobility Management - DMM, PMIPv6 and beyond, ...)
- Software Defined Networking (SDN) approaches for wireless/cellular networks
- Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RAN) approaches for DenseNets
- Novel theoretical frameworks for DenseNets
- Energy Efficiency techniques for DenseNets
- Approaching density-proportional capacity of DenseNets
- Evolved network management and Operations Systems Support (OSS) for DenseNets
- Standards and technologies for small cells (IEEE 802.11, LTE HeNB, ...)
- 3GPP LTE-Advanced and beyond-LTE support to DenseNets

** SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

This Feature Topic Issue solicits original work that must not be under consideration for publication in other venues. Authors should refer to the IEEE Communications Magazine's author guidelines at http://www.comsoc.org/commag/paper-submission-guidelines for information about content, constraints (4500 words or less, no mathematical content, etc.), and formatting of submissions. Manuscripts must be written in English, contain substantial tutorial content, and be accessible to a broad general audience working in other fields. Please submit manuscripts to Manuscript Central at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/commag-ieee, and select the category "January 2015/Extremely Dense Wireless Networks."

** IMPORTANT DATES

Manuscript Submission Due: May 1, 2014
Acceptance Notification: August 1, 2014
Final Manuscript Due: November 1, 2014
Publication Date: January 2015

** GUEST EDITORS

David Chieng, MIMOS Berhad (Malaysia)
Claudio Cicconetti, MBI Srl (Italy)
Antonio de la Oliva, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)
Juan Carlos Zúñiga, InterDigital Inc. (Canada)