Air Interfaces (PHY, MAC, RRM)

• 5G air interfaces.
• Advanced modulation schemes, new coding solutions, FEC, HARQ, PAPR optimisation.
• Advanced Radio RRM and MAC functions.
• Antennas and propagation.
• Cloud-RANs, fronthaul/backhaul aspects.
• Communications at the mm wave range.
• MIMO advances.
• Multi-service (MBB, MCC, MTC, etc.) support.
• New air interfaces below 6GHz.

Optical Communications - Networks

• Advances in optical access networks.
• Components and communications.
• Gigabit home and in-building networks.
• High-split next generation FTTH PONs.
• Optical and digital signal processing.

Software-Defined Infrastructures

• Network function virtualisation advances.
• Network overlays and federation.
• Network programmability.
• SDN-based switch/router architectures.
• Software defined networking challenges.
• Traffic engineering, QoS, energy-efficiency.

Management Technologies

• Autonomic network management.
• Big Data, analytics, predictive and prescriptive technologies.
• Cognitive and self-learning mechanisms.
• Energy-efficient networks/infrastructures.
• Management architectures and frameworks.
• Management of resources, services and customer experience.
• Resilience and network reliability.
• Security, trust, and privacy.

Convergence with Emerging Concepts

• Big data infrastructures and applications.
• Cloud infrastructures, distributed clouds.
• Convergence with IT technologies.
• Cyber-physical systems.
• Data centre systems, high performance data-centres.
• Distributed storage and middleware.
• Fog computing.
• Hybrid satellite and terrestrial networks.
• Internet of Things, Machine to Machine.
• OTT technologies.
• Smart embedded systems.
• Smart systems at the nano-scale.

Business Aspects - Vertical markets - Applications/ Services

• Applications of the tactile Internet.
• E-Health and emergency management.
• Emergency and safety systems.
• Emerging business models, monetisation of infrastructures and services.
• Intelligent Transportation Systems.
• Multimedia services and applications.
• Peer-to-peer, application and service overlays.
• Smart cities, smart grids and environments.
• Social networks.

Testbeds and Experimental Research

• Advanced multimedia testbeds/facilities.
• Cloud testbeds/facilities.
• Cognitive radio testbeds/facilities.
• Experimentally-driven research.
• Experimenter/end-user involvement.
• Federation of testbeds/facilities.
• Real-time system operation visualisation.
• Smart cities, IoT and M2M testbeds/facilities.
• Tools & techniques for testbeds management.