Panels

WCNC 2017 Technical Panel Tentative Titles and Schedule 

  1. Mon March 20, 10:50am-12:10pm: The IoT Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities
  2. Mon March 20, 2:40pm-4pm: WiFi’s Next Growth Spurt: From Teen to Adult
  3. Mon March 20, 4:20pm-5:40pm: Battle of the Bands: How Will Spectrum Initiatives Drive Emerging Wireless Networks?
  4. Tue March 21, 10:50am-12:10pm: Evolution or Revolution: 5G Technology and What it Will Enable Beyond 4G
  5. Tue March 21, 2:40pm-4pm: The Impact of NFV and SDN on Next Generation Communication Networks: Real or Virtual?
  6. Tue March 21, 4:20pm-5:40pm: Promise Meets Reality: mmWave and Massive MIMO in Next-Generation Wireless Systems
  7. Wed March 22, 10:50am-12:10pm: Is 5G Ready for the Challenges of Emerging Markets?
  8. Wed March 22,2:40pm-4pm: Look Ma, no hands: intelligent transportation and the wireless networks that drive it
  9. Wed March 22,4:20-5:40: The Crazy New World Enabled by the 5G Tactile Internet
 

Panel Details

For the bios of panelists,  please click here.
 

Panel #1 (Mon March 20, 10:50am-12:10pm): The IoT Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities

The Internet of Things (IoT) will bring about tremendous improvements in user experience and system efficiency. It will have a transformational impact on all industries and re-shape business models and industry configurations. An estimated 50 billion connected devices will be deployed by 2020 and the total IoT revenue is expected to grow to $1.2 trillion in 2022. As a result, IoT services are expected to be a key driver for growth in the telecommunication industry.

The cellular industry has introduced many features in 4G to support IoT services including coverage and capacity enhancement, cost reduction, power consumption reduction, overhead reduction and signaling enhancement. In addition, both massive and mission-critical machine-type communications are expected to be important components of 5G.

The goal of the panel is to bring together researchers from both industry and academia, cellular service providers, and industrial partners to explore the role of 4G and 5G in IoT including requirements, business cases, emerging trends, and potential applications. The focus of the panel will be on the evolution of cellular technologies to support low-power wide-area IoT services, related requirements, commercial use cases, field experiments and performance results.

Specific areas of interest to be addressed by the panelists include:
·       IoT requirements, emerging trends, applications, use cases and verticals
·       Enabling 4G/5G technologies for low-power wide-area cellular IoT
·       Key challenges and opportunities to fully supporting 5G IoT
·       Recent advances in 3GPP standardization on NB-IoT and MTC
·       Massive machine-type communications for 4G/5G
·       Mission-critical and ultra-reliable machine-type communications for 4G/5G
·       Direct M2M communications including D2D and V2V
·       Comparison of 4G/5G cellular and non-cellular IoT technologies
·       Capacity, coverage and battery life improvement for cellular IoT
·       Voice support for IoT services and applications
·       Energy harvesting and green communications for IoT
 
Moderator: Amitava Ghosh, Nokia Fellow and Head, Small Cell Research at Nokia Bell Labs

Panelists:
·       Rapeepat Ratasuk, Principal Research Specialist with Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia
·       Jin Yang, Fellow and Principal Member of Technical Staff, Verizon
·       Hao Xu, Principal Engineer and Manager, Qualcomm
·       Eric Wang, Senior Specialist, Ericsson Research, Ericsson
·       Gaurav Bansal, Senior Researcher, Toyota InfoTechnology Center, Toyota
 
 

Panel #2 (Mon March 20, 2:40pm-4pm): WiFi’s next growth spurt: from teen to adult


WiFi turns twenty this year, as the 802.11 protocol was first launched in September 1997. Over the past two decades WiFi has gone from a slow unreliable niche technology to a lightning-fast and ubiquitous access mechanism that now carries the majority of mobile data traffic. So what’s next for WiFi? This panel will explore the emerging next-generation standard (802.11ax), multi-Gbps Wi-Fi in mmWave spectrum (802.11ad and 11ay), cloud-based network optimization, and mesh networking, as well as new applications that will be enabled by these developments. 


Moderator: Andrea Goldsmith, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Panelists:
·       Craig Barratt, Former SVP of Google
·       Sam Heidari , CEO, Quantenna
·       Brian Hinman, CEO, Mimosa
·       Yasamin Mostafi, Professor of Electrical Engineering, UC Santa Barbara
·       Metin Taskin, CTO, AirTies
 
 

Panel #3 (Mon March 20, 4:20pm-5:40pm): Battle of the Bands: How Will Spectrum Initiatives Drive Emerging Wireless Networks?

The evolution to 5G is expected to enable a host of new applications and services that will place increasing pressure on existing spectrum allocations. In anticipation, regulatory agencies have introduced new initiatives aimed at increasing the availability of spectrum for broadband access. The panel will address challenges and controversies associated with these initiatives and related approaches to spectrum management. At the core is the controversy over how spectrum access rights should be defined: for example, variations of licensed, unlicensed, and/or shared? Technical challenges include managing interference and designing mechanisms to encourage and facilitate efficient sharing. Additional controversies arise over possible policies that may shape, restrain, or favor potential approaches.

Moderator: Prof. Mike Honig, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Northwestern University.

Panelists:
·      Thomas Hazlett, Hugh H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Clemson University
·      Milo Medin, Vice President of Access Services, Google
·      Jon Peha, Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
·      Jeffrey Reed, Willis G. Worcester Professor, Department of ECE,Virginia Tech
·      Chris Stark, Head Business Development, Nokia North America
 
 

Panel #4 (Tue March 21, 10:50am-12:10pm): Evolution or revolution: 5G technology and what it will enable beyond 4G


Fundamental requirements that have emerged for radio access networks in 2020 and beyond include massive capacity and connectivity; support for a diverse set of services, application and users, as well as flexible and efficient use of all available spectrum. In order to meet these requirements, will 5G provide a revolutionary break from previous cellular technologies, or be an incremental improvement over current 4G systems? This panel will explore the 5G technologies currently being considered, and how these technologies will come together to create the 5G network.


Moderator: John Smee, VP Engineering, Qualcomm Research, Qualcomm
·       Erik Dahlman, Senior Expert in Radio Access Technologies, Ericsson Research, Ericsson
·       Byung K. Yi, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Interdigital
·       Santiago Tenorio, Head of Network Strategy & Architecture at Vodafone, Vodafone
·       Geng Wu, Chief Technologist, Intel
 
 

Panel #5 (Tue March 21, 2:40pm-4pm): The Impact of NFV and SDN on Next Generation Communication Networks: Is it Real or Virtual?

There is now no dispute that the wide spread acceptance of the smart phones in the last few years is currently transforming the mobile communication networks. One aspect is related to the movement of data to the cloud so that it can be accessed from anywhere with a variety of devices. This fundamentally redefines the endpoints and time frame for which network services are provisioned. Two additional technology trends have also become paramount in the future of communication systems: Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN). Together they arguably represent the biggest advancement in the communication network architecture in the last 20 years, and are fundamentally changing how network services are provided. It is the key enabler that will allow the network to be more nimble, flexible and scalable. It gives a unique opportunity to re-architect the network to efficiently offer the services in the future. The industry has already moved strongly in this direction with the creation of OPNFV in September of 2014 to speed the commercialization of these technologies. These developments will increase the rate of innovation, equip the industry for novel business models, and speed up the development of the ecosystem that will enrich our lives. This panel will discuss the benefit that NFV and SDN will bring to a commercial deployment, the impact to the system design, key enablers, implementation hurdles and new research necessary to make these technologies real.

Organizer & Moderator: Anthony Soong, Chief Scientist for Wireless Research and Standards, Huawei Technologies 

Panelists:
·       Toby Ford, AVP of Cloud Technology and Platform Architecture & Strategy, AT&T, and Board member of OpenStack
·       Tetsuya Nakamura, Principal Architect, Strategy and Innovation Group, CableLabs.  (Former Vice Chair ETSI NFV ISG)
·       Sandra Scott-Hayward, Assistant Professor, Queen’s University Belfast, Vice Chair of ONF Security WG
·       Vasu Subramanian, Head of Core, Cloud and Software Innovation Planning, Nokia
 
 

Panel #6 (Tue March 21, 4:20pm-5:40pm): Promise Meets Reality: mmWave and Massive MIMO in Next-Generation Wireless Systems

5G is accelerating a better connected world with high data rate, low latency, high reliability and massive connections.  Massive MIMO (M-MIMO) in the mmW range is considered to be one of the key technologies that will enable 5G capacity increases. How much of the hype surrounding M-MIMO is wishful thinking and how much is reality is a critical question for the future of 5G. Many challenges remain in performance evaluation and implementation. In this panel we examine the critical issues surrounding M-MIMO for mmW, how to address those challenges and in what areas further research is needed.  This exciting panel hopes to bring the audience a little closer to understanding this critical technology.
 
Topics include:
 
1.     Standardization and policy.  The pace of standardization of mmW and M-MIMO.  Global gaps in mmW spectrum alignment and how to address them.  The state of the  US spectrum policy for mmW
2.     M-MIMO performance in mmW. How much of the theoretical performance translate into real deployments? How much will performance vary from site to site and what effect will this have on the feasibility? How far are channel and blockage models from reality?  How good is ‘good enough’ for initial deployment?
3.     M-MIMO implementation. All digital versus hybrid. ADC and DAC resolution issues. Radical alternatives based on lens focusing or other non-traditional technologies
4.     What are the practical limits regarding number of antennas that we can realistically expect to see over the next 5 years?
5.     Applicability. Is M-MIMO a mmW only solution and what are the similarities and differences if it were to be applied in low band
6.     Resulting capacity increases. How will M-MIMO performance translate to network performance increases?  Discuss field trial performance in US (AT&T/other) and projected gap to 3GPP target
7.     Investment in Research.  What are the critical areas that required more fundamental research to realize the potential of this technology?
 
Moderator: Miguel Dajer, VP for North America Wireless R&D, Huawei.

Panelists:
·       Sundeep Rangan Associate Professor, New York University.
·       Arogyaswami Paulraj, Emeritus Professor, Stanford University
·       Amitava Ghosh, Nokia Fellow and Head, Small Cell Research at Nokia Bell Labs.
·       Arunabha Ghosh, Director of Advanced Wireless Technology Group with AT&T Labs
·       Pingping Zong, Senior Principal Engineer, Next Generation and Standards, Intel Communication and Device Group, Intel Corporation
·       Ian Wong, Senior Manager of the Advanced Wireless Research group, National Instruments
 

Panel #7 (Wed March 22, 10:50am-12:20pm): Is 5G Ready for the Challenges of Emerging Markets?

As the excitement around 5G builds, we have the opportunity of finding new ways of connecting people and “things” under a wide range of spectrum, regulatory, and commercial challenges. Should the mobile eco-system in the fast growing emerging economies continue to adapt their mobile use cases and deployments, as best as possible, based on available ITU/3GPP/IEEE standards designed primarily for perhaps another part of the world? Or is it time for new 5G standardization efforts to adapt technology to the needs of these evolving markets where the next billion mobile users are expected to come from?

In this panel, we will look at what are some of the unique drivers from local regulatory perspective, new use cases and applications that fit the needs of specific emerging markets, differences in infrastructure cost structure, and end user price sensitivity that should influence standardization efforts beyond higher bandwidths, improved coverage and higher capacity. We will discuss how spectrum allocation, regulatory factors and policy impacts implementation and deployment of networks and systems in US and Europe and compare to other nations such as India and African countries. We will cover 4G deployments around the world and how they are expected to evolve into 5G, both for higher bandwidth use cases as well as how IoT is expected to play a significant role in emerging markets.


Moderator: Chaitali Sengupta, Consultant, Cirrus360, Former Vice President, Product Development and Engineering, Reliance Jio Infocomm

Panelists:
·       Larry Alder, VP Product Definition,  One Web
·       Nambi Seshadri, Former CTO, Mobile and Wireless,  Broadcom
·       Al Hammond, Professor of Law at Santa Clara University and Director of the Broadband Institute of California
·       Inderpal Mumick, Chairman and CEO, Kirusa
.       Alan Norman, Public Policy Director, Facebook

 

Panel #8 (Wed March 22,2:40pm-4pm): Look Ma, no hands: intelligent transportation and the wireless networks that drive it

Today's automated driving trials rely on a variety of sensors placed on vehicles to enable functions such as emergency braking and collision avoidance. Meanwhile, the automotive industry is committed to deploying communication technology to enable warning and indications to (human) drivers regarding traffic incidents and safety. But the role of 5G or cellular wireless generally is still unclear. The panel discussion will focus on how cellular communication technologies can supplement sensing and whether it is necessary to achieve the vision of driving automation.
 
Topics of discussion:
• What modes of communication are most suitable for automated driving vehicles: vehicle to vehicle communication, communication via infrastructure, or some combination? Advantages and limitations of each.
• What are the bandwidth hungry and delay sensitive applications in vehicular? Beyond delivery of entertainment, what role may cellular play? How can 5G support sensor sharing and remote driving? What areas do we need to improve?
• How do current standards (DSRC, LTE, LTE V2V) need to evolve to support automated driving?
•Can communication achieve better traffic flow and traffic management? Studies on platooning and some preliminary work on intersection management suggests this may be the case, but to what extent can we improve vehicular traffic throughput? Also, how does this influence human behavior? What role does cellular play in this?
 
Organizer and Moderator: Weimin Xiao, Principal Engineer in Wireless Standards, Huawei

Panelists:
·       Vaibhav Garg, Systems Manager, Texas Instruments
·       Ravi Puvvala, Founder & CEO, Savari
·       Steven Shladover California PATH Program Manager, UC Berkeley
·       Jim Misener, Automotive Standards Activities Lead, Qualcomm
·       Onur Altintas,  Fellow, Toyota ITC
 
 

Panel #9 ((Wed March 22, 4:20pm-5:40pm): The Crazy New World Enabled by the 5G Tactile Internet


Wireless communications as known today enables to connect devices and people for exchanging content, being multimedia and/or data. The data rates of wireless communications continue to increase from generation to generation, mainly driven by innovation in electronics. With 5G an additional breakthrough is soon to happen, as the latency of communicating over the wireless network will become low enough to enable an end-to-end roundtrip delay from terminals through the network back to terminals of approximately 1-10ms. This is the response of human tactile to visual feedback control. The wireless communications network can then become the platform for enabling to control and steer real and virtual objects in many situations of our life. Almost no area of economy will be left untouched, with examples being health & care, mobility, education, manufacturing, smart grids, and many more. The Tactile Internet will become a driver for economies and innovation, and will help develop societies to a new level of sophistication. To make this happen, we must tackle many open research challenges. Hence, we want to address the challenges ahead, as well as the crazy new world enabled by having a ubiquitously available remote control network, the Tactile Internet. Examples could be:

  1. Holographic phone calls (help me ObiWan). How practical is that and when will it happen?
  2. Personal drones not only for logistics but also for moving people, or other kinds of personal assistants. Beyond driverless cars to driverless everything.
  3. Immersive 3D glasses type media. How will it be used, when will I see it, especially using cellular. So will I sit in my driverless car and think I am sitting in a grassy field in Bavaria?
  4. Smart city. From simple applications as controlling the smart grid, to cars that drop me off and find their own parking spot. Any imagination beyond? E.g., can we envision a city without traffic accidents? A city without the infrastructure concept of streets as today?

Moderator: Prof. Gerhard Fettweis, Vodafone Chair, Mobile Communication Systems, TU Dresden 

Panelists:
·       Satoshi Nagata, 3GPP RAN1 Chairman and Manager, NTT DoCoMo
·       Charlie Zhang, Vice President, Samsung Research America
·       Sanjai Kholi, Facebook
·       Sailesh Chittipeddi, CTO, Integrated Device Technology
·       John Smee, VP Engineering, Qualcomm Research, Qualcomm