MESSAGE FROM THE TECHNICAL PROGRAM CHAIRS

On behalf of the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2006), it is our pleasure to invite you to this exciting event to be held in an exciting city, Istanbul. In addition to its long history and its unmatched natural beauty, Istanbul is also known as the point where two continents - Europe and Asia - meet. While Istanbul bridging only two continents, ICC 2006 will bridge even more continents through communications. This is already demonstrated in making the conference a reality by involving more than 3000 people from more than 50 countries in 5 continents.

We are proud to tell you that ICC 2006’s program committee put together an outstanding program including 12 Executive Panels, 9 technical symposia, 5 Workshops and 21 tutorials. The program will start on the morning of Sunday, 11 June 2006, with tutorials and workshops. On Monday, 12 June 2006, after the opening plenary, the technical sessions over 15 parallel tracks and the executive panels will begin and will continue on the following two days. The program will end on Thursday 15 June 2006 with more tutorials and workshops.

ICC 2006 will feature 5 workshops that will address a number of areas and community of interest that are not covered within the technical symposia. Furthermore, out of very high number of proposals, we have selected 21 tutorials addressing both fundamental and emerging technologies in the communications and networking areas. In addition, the program includes 12 executive panels organized by leading industry executives and addressing the hottest technical and business issues in the field of communications and networking. These panels and tutorials bring top experts from both the industry and academia to provide a wide set of perspectives, practices, and technical expertise.

We received more than 2600 submissions to the conference. This is the second highest submission number in the ICC and Globecom history. Over 1000 technical experts from all over the world participated in the peer review process. Based on the results of a rigorous peer review process, 983 best papers were selected for presentation and publication in ICC 2006 Proceedings resulting in about 39% acceptance ratio. To encourage more interactions and fruitful discussions, this year, first time in ICC history, we arranged the presentation of some technical papers in the poster format. From the technical quality standpoint and the publication in the proceedings, ICC 2006 does not distinguish among papers regardless their presentation format during the conference. With 165 sessions featuring lecture style presentations and 18 sessions featuring poster style presentations, ICC 2006’s 9 technical symposia will cover a variety of areas ranging from wireless communications to optical networks.

The technical program of ICC 2006 would not have been possible without the tremendous volunteer efforts of the entire ICC 2006 technical program committee and organization committee. We are most grateful to the authors who submitted their work to ICC 2006, the symposia chairs and vice chairs, technical program committee members, the reviewers who have so diligently supported the peer review process, the workshop chairs who have worked so hard to organize the workshops, the technical program vice chairs, and everyone else who helped to put together this remarkable program for their time, dedication, and hard work.

We would like to use this opportunity to encourage and welcome everyone to attend ICC 2006 to take advantage of all these wonderful work, to learn about the latest research results, key findings, and the state-of-the-art communications and networking technologies, to see old friends and meet new ones, and to discuss the most exciting ideas.

We look forward to seeing you in Istanbul.