Roadmap to 5G: Rising to the Challenge

Submission Deadline: 28 April 2019

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Roadmap to 5G: Rising to the Challenge.

5G technology is crucial for building a modern information society (in Europe it is called a gigabit society). This is a society in which a citizen uses real-time interactive e-government services and advanced e-health diagnostics surrounded by Internet of Things services or participates in mass cultural events through high-quality digital media. It is expected that 5G will also increase revenue from mobile business applications by providing them a seamless, reliable communication service without the need for physical application installation on terminal equipment.

The horizon for the forthcoming network is 2020-2025 in several countries, and different strategies are being proposed by governments and enterprises in order to eliminate barriers, integrate solutions and start installation of required hardware. We can say that 5G is almost there, at least as far as research is concerned. However, there are many different inherent issues related to the development of the infrastructure. Among them, economic issues appear due to the conflict of interests between operators and citizenship (to operators, investment is only advantageous in dense hotspots). In addition, health problems may arise by high radiation of electromagnetic fields in cumulative 5G networks. Other issues are concerned with bandwidth access and sharing since the current bandwidth is not enough for the expected massive use of the mobile infrastructure. At last, implementation barriers appear where end-to-end communications with multiple radio and wired standards are concerned.

Some of these problems require political actions (regulations), others require business plans which may ensure revenues for required high investments. All the challenges may be faced by the introduction of technological solutions, which should make the implementation of 5G easier and smoother. This Special Section in IEEE Access aims at presenting the roadmap for the implementation of 5G network through the presentation of any challenges and the proposition of solutions in order to provide smooth research-to-market actions. This Special Section is not limited to research issues even if research challenges are included, but goes beyond by providing a vision of all aspects engaged in the 5G development roadmap. Therefore, we expect reports of experience and new technical insights/ideas presenting 5G deployment challenges, as well as potential solutions from all the stakeholders including operators, hardware vendors, the academic community and administration holders.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Benefits of 5G in the society: smart factories, smart cities, smart transport
  • Present initiatives of 5G implementations and global use cases showing 5G development
  • Standardization and interwork of standards
  • Current limitations and necessary regulations
  • Legal aspects related with the use of the new infrastructure (e.g., multi-operator scenarios)
  • New technological solutions for improving implementation
  • Existing best practices opening the road to deployment in local markets
  • Innovative business plans for 5G exploitation
  • Motivation actions for 5G development. Assimilation of global plans
  • Novel measurements for clarifying requirements for the forthcoming network

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor:  Kostas E. Psannis, University of Macedonia, Greece

Guest Editors:

  1. Muhammad Imran, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia
  2. Wael Guibene, Amazon Lab126, USA
  3. Tomohiko Taniguchi, Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, Japan
  4. Jaime Ruiz Alonso, Nokia Inc., Spain

 

Relevant IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Modelling, Analysis, and Design of 5G Ultra-Dense Networks
  2. Emerging Technologies for Device to Device Communications
  3. Emerging Technologies for Vehicle to Everything (V2X)


IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief:
Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact:  kpsannis@uom.gr