Deadlines not mentioned, see contact info at bottom of the announcement.


                                CALL FOR PAPERS 
                         for the Thirty-seventh Annual
           HAWAI'I INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEM SCIENCES (HICSS)
                         on the Big Island of Hawaii
                            January 5 - 8, 2004
                         http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu


Tracks: Internet Technology Track
Minitrack Title: Telecommunication and Network Convergence: Theory and
Practice

Introduction of digital technologies, deregulation in the market place and
significant advances in broadband networking and communications have led to
the convergence of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), PC-based
enterprise data networks and the Internet. Only a few years ago, computing,
telecommunications, broadcasting and media were completely separate
industries each following distinct business logic and building on
technologies that had little overlap. However, today the Internet Protocol
(IP) is clearly becoming a common global packet-platform over which several
new and exciting applications and services can be offered. As the Internet
continues to evolve into a critical global infrastructure, several
significant barriers and formidable challenges continue to arise. Some of
them are technical, economic or socio-political, while the hardest combine
all three aspects. The rapid technological pace of "converged networks" is
already having far reaching impacts in several industries and business
processes. There is a clear need for management to understand the hurdles,
issues, solutions and opportunities posed by convergence to gain competitive
advantage and increase profitability.

This minitrack seeks to bring together researchers working on emerging
technological, strategic, and policy issues associated with the phenomenon
of  network convergence.  By network convergence we imply the integration of
several media applications (data, voice, video, images) onto a common
packet-based platform provided by IP (Internet Protocol) with the global
Internet now becoming a true multi-service infrastructure. This minitrack
continues on its successful sessions held at HICSS 36 in Waikoloa. Through
this minitrack, we seek to create links between academic researchers and the
practitioners who are on the ground building next generation converged
networks.

Topics include but are not limited to:
* Impact of newer edge-devices on demand for converged services.
* Security and privacy concerns in converged networks.
* Regulatory issues associated with deploying Voice over IP
* Impact of convergence on network management costs
* Quality of service issues in converged networks
* impact of network convergence on business value chain 
* SIP, signaling, NAT/Firewall problems and solutions
* Large-scale video-conferencing and federated security models,
  implementation
* Planning methods to migrate towards a converged enterprise infrastructure 
* Impact of converged networks on knowledge management and sharing
* Relationship between ICT technologies and knowledge workers
* Impact of competing broadband access technologies on rollout of converged
  services
* Impact of converged networks on collaborative activities
* QoS-enabled pricing strategies
* Reorganizing business structures to leverage convergence
* Theoretical models, simulation models, case studies, or field experiences
  are all welcome.


We hope to attract a large international community of researchers who are
active in this exciting field of telecom convergence. We encourage paper
submissions from researchers and practitioners exploring the various facets
of convergence from a technical, policy, economics and social acceptance
standpoint. We also believe that the topic of network convergence would
dominate discussions for the next several years in the Telecom space and
hence it is very likely that this minitrack could be repeated and become a
regular at HICCS for the next few years.


For additional information or to submit abstracts, please contact:

Samir Chatterjee				Amitava Dutta
Associate Professor				Eakin Endowed Chair in
E-Commerce	
School of Information Science			School of Management
Claremont Graduate University			George Mason University	
Claremont, CA 91711				Fairfax, Virginia 22030
USA						USA
(909) 607-4651					(703) 993-1779
FAX : (909) 621-8564				FAX : (703) 993-1809
e-mail : samir.chatterjee@cgu.edu		e-mail: adutta@som.gmu.edu