In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the Self-organizing Networks (SON) paradigm applied to wireless communications networks. For example, the Next Generation Mobile Network (NGNM) Alliance [1] of leading mobile network operators put strong emphasis on SON as the enabler for efficient operation of current and future mobile networks, both in terms of increased performance and reduction of management efforts. The NGNM has presented a set of SON and Operation and Maintenance use cases and requirements ranging from planning and configuration to optimization, fault management and performance management when in operation. This effort has served as a baseline for standardization efforts in 3GPP [2] as well as several SON research projects like the SOCRATES [3] project or the E3 project [4].

Therefore it is timely to gather people with SON interests at a workshop with a concentrated focus on SON for mobile networks. The scope of the workshop is intended to attract both industry and academia, primarily with a focus on 3GPP technologies such as LTE, 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, Identity Management, Automatic Neighbor Relation setup, Management of non-unique physical cell identities
• IP address and VLAN ID management

Self-Optimization:
• Random access optimization, Load balancing within and between radio access technologies, Interference management, Mobility Robustness Optimization, Coverage and Capacity Optimization
• Node load balancing, Tracking area optimization, Quality of Service Management, Transport Path Optimization

Self-Healing: Cell outage detection and compensation, alarm correlation

Supporting SON functions and technologies:
• Real-time performance monitoring,
• Integration of multiple SON functions / SON coordination
• Policy-based management

Field trials and demonstrators:
• Test bed activities and experiences from field trials
• Experience of first deployments of SON features implemented in products

References
[1] www.ngmn.org
[2] www.3gpp.org
[3] www.fp7-socrates.org
[4] ict-e3.eu

Important Dates
Submission of papers and demo proposals: 2010-NOV-15
Notification: 2011-JAN-09
Camera Ready: 2011-FEB-20

Submission Info
5-page full paper or 2-page extended abstract (full paper preferred) for presentation in plenary 2-page extended abstract including results and showcase description for demonstrator sessions The workshop is a VTC track, with peer-reviewed contributions that will appear in IEEExplore Please see the VTC 2011 Spring web site for submission instructions.

Organizing Committee
Fredrik Gunnarsson,
Ericsson Research,
Sweden
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kürner,
Technische Universität
Braunschweig, Germany
Lars Christoph Schmelz,
Nokia Siemens Networks
Research, Germany