Workshop on Telecom Economics, Engineering and Policy
Krakow, Poland
September 3, 2012
https://archive.itc-conference.org/itc24/workshops/TelecomEconEngPolicy/
Workshop program: https://archive.itc-conference.org/itc24/workshop-program/
The workshop will address contemporary policy issues that are profoundly consequential for the future of telecommunications. Examples are network neutrality, spectrum allocation and national braodband infrastructures, all areas of interest in the workshop. The policy decisions will impact mobile and broadband service providers, content providers and equipment vendors. Given the importance of engineering trade-offs based on technical principles in policy making, we believe that the teletraffic engineering community has important contributions to make to the debates. For instance, networking expertise helps to reveal whether perceived costs or benefits of existing practice are real or imaginary. Similarly, knowledge of future technology trends helps to determine feasibility and complexity of implementing certain regulatory regimes. Analytical skills used to deal with engineering problems are typically applicable to the formulation and solution of models of market competition in providing communication services, and these are often the basis of quantitative analyses. It is the goal of the workshop to facilitate greater participation of the international teletraffic community in discussions and subsequent policy-making for the industry. The workshop intends to achieve this goal by bringing together diverse, not yet necessarily well-connected, quarters of the technical community that are studying fundamental questions underlying the current debates and by informing the teletraffic community of these questions and results to stoke further interest.
Scope of workshop
We invite contributions on topics in which there is interplay between economics, engineering and policy related to the telecommuications industry. Contributions that reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of the workshop scope are particularly welcome. Areas of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following.
Network Neutrality. The goal is to examine the subject from a multi-disciplinary perspective. For instance, what are technical and performance considerations for and against network neutrality? What are the implications for network evolution, investment incentive and market structure? How does the neutrality requirement affect innovations of the higher-layer applications? How to strike a proper balance between efficiency of capacity usage and fairness in serving different users?
Spectrum: Allocation and beyond. The goal is to discuss different ways to use spectrum more efficiently to accommodate increasing demand for providing ubiquitous wireless broadband services. For instance, how to shift exclusive access to certain spectrum from broadcasters to broadband providers? How to facilitate shared use of spectrum with technologies like cognitive radio? Should some spectrum be allocated for open access, and if so, how to contain anarchy and the tragedy associated with commons?
Development of national broadband infrastructures. The goal is to share experiences of different nations. For instance, how do countries differ in their approach to achieve nation-wide broadband penetration? Should the national broadband network be managed as a public utility, a regulated monopoly, or through a consortium of competing private enterprises? How does an advanced broadband network infrastructure affect national economy in general?
Paper Submission and Registration
Authors should prepare a PDF version of their paper not exceeding 8 pages with a font size not smaller than 11 points. Please submit the paper to the Workshop Organizers with the name of the presenting author indicated. Submision implies that, if accepted, an author will register and present it at the workshop. The registration and payment issues will be managed by the organization of ITC 2012. The registration deadline of the workshop is June 29, 2012.
Accepted papers will be made available in the ACM Digital Library.
Important dates
Paper submission deadline: May 18, 2012 (extended to May 28)
Acceptance notification: June 15, 2012
Final version: June 25, 2012
Registration: June 29, 2012
Workshop: September 3, 2012
Workshop Organizers:
Debasis Mitra (Bell Labs, mitra@research.bell-labs.com)
Qiong Wang (Bell Labs, qwang@research.bell-labs.com)
Steering Committee:
Eitan Altman (INRIA); Andrew Odlyzko (U. Minnesota)
Jon Peha (Carnegie-Mellon); Henning Schulzrinne (FCC)
Rod Tucker (U. Melbourne); Jean Walrand (UC, Berkeley)
Financial support provided by INRIA's MENEUR program for the workshop is
gratefully acknowledged.