Important Dates
- Submission Deadline: 29 February 2024
- Publication: July/August 2024
According to the latest data released by International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations (UN) agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), at present, nearly 2.9 billion people of the world are compelled to stay offline. This points to the fact that more than one third of the world population is still unconnected. This unconnected population stays in rural and remote areas that have no internet service provider. Sparse population density, low demand, lower affordability, higher cost of deployment and maintenance of both wired and wireless network infrastructures lead to a dearth of even basic internet connectivity. As a result the quality of personal and professional life of rural and remote communities is adversely impacted. Today, “affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries” is included in UN’s sustainable development goals (SDG) 2030. For many government and welfare projects globally the availability and quality of ICT infrastructure in remote and rural areas becomes a key concern.
The three use cases defined in 5G, i.e. enhanced mobile broadband(eMBB), massive machine type communication (mMTC), and ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC), are primarily targeted at urban population, as they require availability of advanced networking infrastructures capable of delivering high data rates with low latency. Thus, there has been a pressing need for the “fourth use case”, i.e. “global access to internet for all (GAIA)” while we define B5G and 6G network use cases.
Overcoming the aforementioned challenge demands fundamental innovation in the communication and networking technologies in the B5G and 6G networks. Some of the enabling technologies include LEO satellites, aerial platforms (HAP, MAP, LAP), TV white space, small cells and wireless backhaul. In this special issue, we solicit novel contributions from researchers engaged in industry, academia regulatory bodies to address the challenge of provisioning broadband connectivity in the remote and rural areas.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Implementation challenges in broadband networks for Rural and Remote communities
- Innovative hardware in networks and devices to enable access to remote communities
- Envisioning the impact of 6G networks on Rural and Remote communities and their business/industry operations
- Architectures and Designs of Systems and Applications incorporating B5G and anticipated 6G networks for Rural and Remote communities
- Strategies to overcome Cybersecurity and Privacy challenges in Systems and Applications used in Rural and Remote communities
- Performance, Scalability, Usability and Reliability of Applications using B5G and upcoming 6G networks
- Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and B5G / 6G networks for Rural and Remote applications
- Engineering network convergence on the Cloud in the B5G / 6G era
- Optimizing business processes of rural and remote communities using advances in B5G and upcoming 6G networks
- Inevitability of Open Source approach in developing the strategies for upcoming 6G networks
- Role of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in remote and poorly connected geographical regions
- Development of appropriate government policies, procedures and regulations for the upcoming 6G networks in the context of Rural and remote communities
- Drones-based applications in rural and remote communities using B5G
Submission Guidelines
Only submissions that describe previously unpublished, Contemporary research and practice that are not currently under review by a conference or another journal will be considered. Extended versions of conference papers must be at least 30 percent different from the original conference works. Feature articles should be no longer than 4,200 words and have no more than 20 references (with tables and figures counting as 300 words each). Articles should be understandable by a broad audience of computer science and engineering professionals, avoiding unnecessary theory, mathematics, jargon, or abstract concepts. For author guidelines, see the Author Information page.
All manuscripts must be submitted to ScholarOne Manuscripts by the deadline, making sure that the specific Special Issue is selected in order to be considered for publication under this Call for Papers. Submissions are subject to peer review on both technical merit and relevance to IT Professional’s readership.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated text in an article should be disclosed in the acknowledgements section, while the sections of the paper that present AI-generated text verbatim should be quoted within quotation marks and provide a citation to the AI system used to generate the text.
IT Professional magazine is a hybrid publication, allowing either traditional manuscript submission or author-paid Open Access manuscript submission.
Questions?
Contact the guest editors at it4-2024@computer.org.
- Editorial Board Member: Eleni Tsiropoulo
- Sumit Chakravarty, Kennesaw State University (USA)
- Tamaghna Acharya, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (India)
- Bhuvan Unhelkar, University of South Florida (USA)
