59TH IEEE VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY
                                                CONFERENCE 2004, SPRING

                                   May 11-14, 2004, Magazzini del Cotone, Genoa, Italy
                                   Conference Web site: http://www.vtc2004spring.com/



                                Call for Papers for the thematic area on:
                                 Satellite Networks and Services

Technical Program Committee:
Giovanni Giambene, University of Siena, Italy (Chair)

Riccardo De Gaudenzi, European Space Agency, The Netherlands
Michel Diaz, LAAS, France
Barry Evans, Director of the Centre for Comm. Systems Research, University of Surrey, UK
Professor Sastri Kota, Harris Corporation, USA
Angelo Luvison, AEI, Italy
Franco Mazzenga, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
Gérard Maral, ENST, France
Franco Marconicchio, ASI, Italy
Takis Mathiopoulos, University of British Columbia, USA
Giovanni Pau, UCLA, USA
Gonzalo Seco, European Space Agency, The Netherlands
Maria Angeles Vasquez-Castro, European Space Agency, The Netherlands


Scope of this thematic area
Recently the request of multimedia services has been rapidly increasing and satellite networks appear to be
attractive for a fast service deployment and to extend the typical service area of terrestrial systems. In
comparison with traditional wide area networks, a characteristic of satellite communication systems is their
ability in broadcasting and multicasting multimedia information flows. In addition to this, mobile satellite
systems are expected to realize an umbrella macro-cellular coverage for terrestrial 3G systems.
Telecommunication networks are moving towards an all-IP environment with unified protocols in both
access and core networks. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to achieve the integration between
terrestrial and satellite systems not only from the coverage standpoint, but also for what concerns protocols
until the application layer. In such a context, several techniques need to be proposed in order to optimize
the system at different layers in terms of definition of suitable architectures and orbital configurations (LEO,
MEO, GEO), determination of wideband transmission techniques via satellite to/from the remote mobile
terminals, definition of techniques to share efficiently the satellite radio resources amongst the greatest
number of users and realization of novel information services that account for the user position (GPS or
Galileo systems).

This thematic area at VTC 2004 ­ Spring is addressed, but not limited to, the following research topics:
   Satellite Network Architectures
   Hybrid Satellite and Terrestrial Networks
   Services and Applications
   Localization Systems
   Channel modeling for navigation systems
   Navigation without line-of-sight signal
   Network-aided positioning
   Broadcasting Satellites
   Internet Services over Satellite
   Traffic Characterization on Modeling
   Quality of Service Aspects
   IP Protocols for Satellite
   TCP/IP Performance over Satellite
   New Transport Protocols for Mobile Satellite Systems
   Network Control and Management
   Mobility and Location Management
   On-Board Processing and Switching
   Vertical Integration in the Air Interface Protocols
   Media Access Control Protocols
   Scheduling Approaches for Quality of Service Guarantee with Multimedia Traffics
   Radio Resource Management for Hybrid Terrestrial and Satellite Systems
   Energy-efficient Access Strategies
   Access Schemes with Adaptive Transmission bit-rate
   Reservation Protocols for Satellite Access
   Advances in Coding for Satellite Communications
   Modulation Schemes for Satellite
   Advances in Antenna Technology

Submission details:  Online submission is available at the conference Web site
http://www.vtc2004spring.com/. Authors should submit a short abstract (200 words) and an extended
abstract (up to 1000 words) through the electronic submission interface (EDAS system) by selecting the
Satellite Networks and Services area and suitable tracks within it. Extended abstracts are requested in
PDF format. The submission must include the name, complete mailing address, telephone and fax numbers,
and the email address of the author(s). For conference details, please refer to the Conference Web site.

Deadlines
Extended abstract submission:                    September 15, 2003
Notification of acceptance:                      December 15, 2003
Final paper submission:                          February 16, 2004