In recent years, the Self-organizing Networks (SON) paradigm applied to wireless communications networks has gained high importance. For example, the Next Generation Mobile Network (NGNM) Alliance of leading mobile network operators put strong emphasis on SON as the enabler for efficient operation of current and future mobile networks. In addition, through the standardization efforts in 3GPP, first SON functionality has been introduced with the deployment of LTE networks.

Radio network SON challenges continue to be a major focus area in both industry and academia, which was evident from the high interest in the first IWSON event at VTC Spring in Budapest 2011. The scope of the second workshop is intended to attract both industry and academia, primarily with a focus on 3GPP technologies such as LTE and LTE-Advanced, but other systems can be considered as well.

The program will include at least one plenary presentation, oral presentations and a poster & demonstration session to enable lively discussions. The workshop welcomes submissions from both researchers and practitioners, either closely related to currently standardized systems or considering future systems. Areas of interest include but are not limited to

Self-Configuration:
• Plug and play mechanisms for network densification and heterogeneous networks, inter-RAT and inter-frequency neighbor relations, identity management

Self-Optimization:
• Inter-RAT and inter-frequency load balancing and mobility robustness optimization, Interference management, Quality of Service Management,
• Coverage and Capacity Optimization including adaptive antennas, Tracking area optimization,
• Energy savings mechanisms
• Shared networks, multi-RAT, multi-layer, multi-frequency, heterogeneous networks

Self-Healing:
• Cell outage detection, diagnosis and compensation in multi-RAT and heterogeneous networks

Supporting and enabling functions and technologies, system-level aspects:
• SON architecture, centralized and decentralized SON
• Integration of multiple SON functions / SON coordination
• Policy-based management, network extension management
• Self-learning mechanisms, Knowledge management mechanisms
• Real-time performance monitoring, Minimization of Drive Tests

Field trials and demonstrators
• Test bed activities and experiences from field trials
• Experiences and field performance of SON features implemented in products

PAPER CATEGORIES
- Full paper (5 pages), which will be peer-reviewed and accepted papers appear on the CD and in IEEExplore
- Demo paper (2 pages) describing the demo scope, which also will be reviewed but will NOT appear on the CD nor in IEEExplore. A possibility is to relate the demo to a full paper with all details. Do mention the link to the full paper in the demo paper.

ELECTRONIC PAPER SUBMISSION
Man­u­scripts must be sub­mit­ted on­line through the [EDAS web­page]-)Link to:
http://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=11153 . For the sub­mis­sion process, au­thors must have at hand the fol­low­ing in­for­ma­tion:

• Manuscript as a PDF file
•Affiliation, email address, and mailing address of every author
•Paper title
•Text file containing the paper abstract in ASCII format, for copying it into the web form

The EDAS system will guide you through the submission procedure.
The final version needs a registration to be completed. One registration is valid for one full and one demo paper.


IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline full papers (5 pages) or 2-page extended abstract: Monday, April 23rd, 2012
Notification of acceptance: Monday, May 28, 2012
Camera-ready version due: Monday, June 25, 2012


Organizing Committee
Fredrik Gunnarsson, Ericsson Research, Sweden
Zwi Altman, Orange Labs, France
Thomas Kürner, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
Markus Gruber, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Germany
Lars Christoph Schmelz, Nokia Siemens Networks Research, Germany
Kostas Tsagkaris, "University of Piraeus, Greece".