Track: Internet and the Digital Economy
Minitrack: Community Wireless Networks: Technical, Economic,
--------------- and Social Issues

The growing increase of deploying community/municipal wireless networks has raised many concerns about their technical, social, economic aspects. The main technical issues facing these systems are choosing the proper technology, assuring quality of service (QoS), avoiding signal interference, optimizing resource management, supporting roaming, and adopting the best design considerations. The social and economic issues, could be more challenging, include choosing the proper business model, addressing their social and economic implications, and engaging a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Another related issue is the need to classify community wireless networks in order to advance this research stream.

This minitrack is dedicated to present and discuss the latest research results and experience in the area of community wireless networks. It is a forum for exchanging ideas, discuss solutions, address concerns, and share experiences among researchers, professionals, and application developers from industry, academia and various communities interested in this innovation. It is also a unique opportunity to obtain insights related to development and deployment issues of community wireless networks.

Topics and research areas include, but are not limited to:
* Creation and sustainability of community networks
* Key factors in the development, implementation and management of community networks
* Business models for developing community networks
* The digital divide triangle: access, training and equipment
* Open source software and community wireless networks
* The social and economic impacts of community networks
* Performance optimization and evaluation
* Classifications of community wireless networks
* Case studies related to community networks
* Economic development and community wireless networks
* Security and privacy issues in community networks

Co-chairs:
Hesham H. Ali (Primary Contact)
College of Information Science and Technology
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE 68182, USA
Phone: +1-402-554-3623
Fax: +1-402-554-3284
Email: hesham@unomaha.edu

Abdelnasser Abdelaal
College of Information Science and Technology
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE 68182, USA
Phone: +1-402-554-4906
Fax: +1-402-554-3284
Email: aabdelaal@mail.unomaha.edu