http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-networks/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-community-networks/ <http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-networks/call-for-papers/special-issue-on-community-networks/>

Community networking is an emerging model for the Future Internet where communities of citizens build, operate and own open IP-based networks, forming a key infrastructure for individual and collective digital participation. Although community-based networks often extend or complement the coverage of networks of commercial ISPs, they differ in several key aspects. There is usually no central authority that is responsible for a precise network planning; a community network grows organically. Support is decentralized and open, provided by the community to the community. The network nodes are often inexpensive off-the-shelf equipment and the network elements exhibit a high degree of heterogeneity in the hardware, software, and capacity. The entire network infrastructure belongs to the users and is shared to build the network. The network is very dynamic: the number of nodes may rapidly grow and change as new members join the network, or when nodes overload or fail. These community networks are usually built with low cost point-to-point wireless links organised in mesh networks, with an increasing presence of optical fibre links.

In these scenarios, the networking and systems research community has the opportunity to contribute with more sustainable, adaptive, scalable, integrated, autonomic solutions for those common traits in community networks.

This special issue aims to collect publications addressing theoretical and practical challenges of community networks and services, including multi-disciplinary contributions that provide insights in the socio-technical-economic understanding of the community network operation and growth.

Topics of Interest

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

Wireless mesh network protocols for community networks
Wireless MAC and routing protocols for heterogeneous community networks
Services and applications in community networks
Cross-layer designs and implementation in community networks
Hybrid community networks with wireless and optical fibre links
Tools for bootstrapping and running community networks
Clouds for community networks
Interoperation of cloud-based community services
Performance modelling and evaluation of community networks and services
Quality of service provisioning
Quality of experience in community networks
Community network security and privacy
Large-scale management and data collection infrastructures
Incentive models for encouraging users and businesses to participate in community networks
Socio-technical-economic models for community networks
Community networks research infrastructure
Submission Details

This special issue solicits papers from an open call and extended papers selected from the International Workshop on Community Networks and Bottom-up-Broadband (CNBuB). http://research.ac.upc.edu/ <http://research.ac.upc.edu/>(CNBuB2014, CNBuB2013, CNBuB2012)

The journal submission should extend previously published workshop/conference papers considerably (a minimum of 30%) with new content. Papers that are essentially the same as the workshop papers will be rejected and will not be considered for review.

All received submissions within the scope of this special issue will be sent out for blind peer review by three experts in the field and be evaluated in regards to the relevance for this special issue, level of novelty, depth of contribution, and overall quality. Submitted articles must be original, unpublished, and not currently under review by other journals. If the paper was preliminarily published at a conference, the submitted manuscript must be a substantial extension of the conference paper. In this case, authors are also required to explain the enhancements made in the journal version. Submitted articles must be written clearly, in good English, and should not exceed 20 pages, everything included such as abstract, figures, tables, references, etc.

Authors should follow the Computer Networks manuscript format which can be found athttp://www.elsevier.com/journals/computer-networks/1389-1286/guide-for-authors <http://www.elsevier.com/journals/computer-networks/1389-1286/guide-for-authors>. Manuscripts should be submitted online through the Elsevier Editorial System http://ees.elsevier.com/comnet/ <http://ees.elsevier.com/comnet/> and authors should select ' Community Networks ' as the article type for submission.

Important Dates

Paper Submission Due: January 15, 2015
First round review results: March 15, 2015
Submission of revised papers: April 15, 2015
Second round review results: May 15, 2015
Publication Target Date:  September, 2015

Guest Editors

Dr. Bart Braem
University of Antwerp, Belgium
Email: bart.braem@iminds.be <mailto:bart.braem@iminds.be>
Roger Baig
Guifi.net Foundation, Spain
Email: roger.baig@guifi.net <mailto:roger.baig@guifi.net>
Dr. Felix Freitag
Technical University of Catalonia, Spain
Email: felix@ac.upc.edu <mailto:felix@ac.upc.edu>
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Leandro Navarro
http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro	 http://dsg.ac.upc.edu