IFIP TC6 (Communication Systems)

Meeting 2001/1

Minutes

Meeting Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Meeting Date: May 31st and June 1st, 2001

TC6 attendants: L.Mason, V.Hara, A.Grzech, A.Casaca, K.Koen, R.Puigjaner, D.Khakhar, H. Rudin, L.Chapin, J. Whiley, G.Leduc, G.Pujolle, H. Perros, R. Boutaba, V.Tschammer.

Apologies: H.Dutton, R.Posch, A.Danthine, N.Sousa, K.Boyanov, D.Hu, J.Slavik, V.Iversen, S.Tohme, O.Spaniol, T.Apostolopoulos, S.Dibuz, S.Jha, F.Aagesen, K.Fabian, V.Wuwongse, F.Kamoun, P.Radford, A.Iyengar, Y.Takahashi, O.Martikainen, H.van As.

1. Approval of agenda

The proposed agenda was approved. 

2. Approval of last meeting minutes

The minutes of the last TC6 meeting (2000/2) were approved.

3. Attendance and membership

TC6 welcomed the new WG6.6 chairman, Raouf Boutaba, in his first attendance of a TC6 meeting.

Since last meeting some new TC6 members have been nominated. The updated member list is included in the meeting documents.

No request for substitution of current TC6 members needs to be done.

There are still 7 countries, which belong to IFIP and that have not nominated TC6 members. They are: Andorra, Egypt, Ireland, Israel, Rep. of Korea, Netherlands and Singapore.

The following actions were agreed to try to get members from those countries:
Andorra – R.Puigjaner to continue contacts (AP56/1)
Egypt – A.Casaca to request IFIP Secretariat for a nomination (AP56/2)
Ireland - A.Casaca to request IFIP Secretariat for a nomination (AP56/3)
Rep. of Korea – H.Perros to contact (AP56/4)
Netherlands – V.Tschammer to contact (AP56/5)
Singapore - A.Casaca to request IFIP Secretariat for a nomination, indicating suggestions from L.Mason (AP56/6).

Oman is interested in becoming an IFIP member as a result of contacts established by O.Spaniol and G.Pujolle. A.Casaca will check the situation with the Secretariat (AP56/7).

A.Casaca reported that other Gulf countries are possibly interested in joining IFIP too.

J.Whiley reported that Zimbabwe will return to IFIP as a full member again.

The computer society of Slovenia has expressed strong interest in developing the relationship with TC6.

4. Nomination of TC6 officers

Augusto Casaca was formally appointed for his second mandate (2001-03) as TC6 chairman by the IFIP President.

A.Casaca proposed Harry Rudin for vice-chairman, Reinhard Posch for secretary and Herbert Leitold for TC6 web page manager. These nominations were agreed by TC6 and are for the period 2001-03.

TC6 did not find a need to nominate a treasurer for the time being.

A.Casaca asked H.Rudin to help prepare a template for conference detailed budgets, which can be used as a model for conference organizers. H.Rudin accepted (AP56/8).

5. Review of action points

The following action points from meeting 55 remain open:
AP55/15 – Insert the TC6 slides in the public part of the TC6 page (A.Casaca)
AP55/22 – A repository of the available tutorials will be put in the TC6 web page (A.Danthine)
AP55/24 – A workshop on digital TV will be planned (J.Slavik)
AP55/25 – Guidelines for the reviewing process (A.Casaca)
AP55/33 – Send addresses of WG 6.2 members to TC6 chairman (G.Pujolle)
AP55/36 – Define steering committee for the NAP conference (G.Pujolle)
AP55/43 – Suggest structure for the WG reports (A.Casaca).

One action point remains open from meeting 51:
AP51/16 – Send addresses of WG6.10 members to TC6 chairman (H. vanAs).

A pointer to the access of the ConfMan software will be included in the EOG by H.Rudin (AP56/9).

R.Boutaba will send information on available commercial software for reviewing of conference papers (AP56/10).

6. Report from IFIP activities

The TC6 chairman gave a report on the last IFIP GA (Beijing, Sept. 2000) and Council (Capri, March 2001) meetings in which he participated.

WG 6.11 was formally approved at the Technical Assembly during the Capri Council meeting.

The TC6 chairman expressed the view that IFIP GA and Council meetings are longer than required to do effective business. Each of those meetings takes four complete days, as they include the meeting itself plus the TA and TC Forum meetings. The same issues are discussed more than once in all these fora. It is the TC6 chairman’s belief that it would be in the IFIP interest to shorten the number of days of each meeting. 

7. TC6 handbook

The TC6 handbook content was unanimously approved by TC6, including some ammendments in sections 5.1 and 5.2. The final approved version will be sent by mail by A.Casaca (AP56/11).

It was reported by the TC6 chairman that, from now on, event organisers only need to read the IFIP Event Approval Guidelines (EAG) and the TC6 Event Organizer’s Guidelines (EOG) to understand the mechanisms behind the organization of an IFIP event. It is recommended that WG chairs indicate this fact to future event organizers. Both these documents can be accessed via the TC6 web page.

8. Rules for student grants

TC6 unanimously approved the IFIP TC6 student travel grant programme.

This programme will be inserted in the private part of the TC6 web page (AP56/12 – A.Casaca). The program will be sent by mail to all the TC6 members (AP56/13 – A.Casaca).

An item will be added to the EOG referring the need to announce this programme in the CFP and announcements of the conference in which the grants have been attributed by TC6 (AP56/14 – H.Rudin).

The TC6 chairman thanked G.Leduc and L.Chapin for having prepared this programme.

9. Marketting of TC6 events

TC6 reviewed all the actions that had been previously planned and as a result decided that the standard procedures for electronic marketting of TC6 events to be implemented from now on are the following:
•	All the Call for Papers (CFP) and Event Announcements (EA) received by the TC6 chairman are forwarded to the TC6 list and IFIP secretariat, and are inserted in the TC6 web page.
•	As soon as the TC6 members receive the CFP and EA from the TC6 chairman will distribute them within the respective Computer Society mailing distribution lists.
•	The WG chairs will distribute the CFP and EA within the respective WG mailing distribution lists.
•	TC6 chair will send information to ACM and IEEE CS about event dates to be inserted in the ACM and IEEE CS calendars.

Besides these standard procedures for marketting the events, any other ones that TC6 members wish to take are welcome.

Many conferences use printed CFP and EA, which continue to be a recommended way of advertising the events. In this case it is advised that TC6 members ensure a wide distribution of this printed material within their respective communities.

The IFIP logo should appear in every CFP and EA of a TC6 sponsored event. The IFIP logo is available, on request, from the TC6 chairman.

It is also recommended that the event local organisers contact the TC6 member, who represnts the country where the event takes place, so that they can receive adequate support from TC6. This recommendation will be inserted in the EOG (AP56/15 – H.Rudin).

An announcement will appear in the TC6 web page requesting that those who wish to receive TC6 event announcements should indicate their e-mail addresses (AP56/16 – A.Casaca).

It should be checked whether all the TC6 books published by Kluwer and Springer are shown in the IFIP web page (AP56/17 – A.Casaca). A link should be established from the TC6 web page (AP56/18 – A.Casaca).

The TC6 web page statistics prepared by H.Leitold were shown to TC6 members. The web page continues to be frequently accessed and it is found to be extremely well structured and maintained. TC6 expresses again its thanks to Herbert Leitold for maintaining the web page.

10. Publications

After a discussion on the preferred solution for the titles of the IFIP TC6 Kluwer books, TC6 agreed to recommend that the book title should be the conference name followed by the series number (in roman) of the conference, e.g. “Personal Wireless Communications III”. The book might have a sub-title to reflect the main emphasis of that particular book, which can be different from book to book.

If a conference steering committee decides that the title of the book should have a different structure of the recommended one, it should agree that title with the respective WG chair and keep the title structure consistent along the different editions of the conference.

The TC6 recommendation on Kluwer book titles will be communicated to Y.Lambert and IFIP Publications Committee (AP56/19 – A.Casaca).

TC6 showed its satisfaction for the fact that INSPEC has already received a complete listing of the IFIP series of books. It is expected that the author’s papers are now indexed by INSPEC. This should be monitored by the WG chairs and if any problem is detected, please report it to the TC6 chairman.

TC6 is aware that the contract with Kluwer is valid until 1st January 2005 and that it will be automatically renewed if no notice is given until 18 months prior to the date of the contract termination. Therefore TC6 requests the IFIP Publications Committee to take the required actions, as soon as possible, so that a decision on the renewal of the Kluwer contract or, alternatively, on the establishments of a contract with another publisher from 2005 on, can be taken in IFIP before 30th June 2003. 

TC6 also requests that the decision to select a publisher from 2005 on is taken involving the Technical Committees in the decision process. From the TC6 viewpoint, at least the following items should be considered for the choice of the publisher: price of books, royalties value, delivery time for proof-ready material, editing procedures, on-line availability of the proceedings and marketting procedures. (AP56/20 – A.Casaca)

The total number of books sold by Kluwer was shown in the meeting documents. Considering the 1999-2000 period, the book that was sold less, sold 125 copies and the one which was solded most, sold 369 copies. Bulk sales are included in both cases. The average number of sales for each book in this period is around 200 copies.

TC6 considers that the number of copies sold is low. As Kluwer has no on-line access to the proceedings, the circulation of the papers published in TC6 events is restricted. The price of the books is a strong deterrent to their sale. The price elasticity experiment reported by Kluwer is not statistically significative and it might also reflect a marketting procedure that is mainly directed to libraries.

TC6 is definitely in favor of a publishing policy, which reduces by half the price of the books and at least duplicates the number of books sold. The value of the royalty might eventually be lower. An approach in which a guaranteed minimum amount for the royalties of each book is provided by the publisher could be investigated.

TC6 strongly believes that electronic publication will be very important in the future. Therefore it is concerned that there is not yet a defined policy in IFIP concerning this issue. For this purpose, TC6 established a group  formed by L.Chapin, G.Leduc and D.Khakhar, to advise on the best way to follow concerning electronic publication for TC6 events.

Finally, TC6 decided that, for the time being, there will be no publishing of a technical journal.

11. Steering Committees

The Networks conference is deleted from the TC6 calendar, therefore the respective steering committee ceased to exist.

The steering committee for Networking will be indicated by H.Perros (AP56/21).

The steering committee for the E-Commerce conference will be updated (AP56/22 – V.Tschammer).

The steering committee of the Integrated Network Management conference will be changed. Its new composition needs to be agreed with IEEE CNOM (AP56/23 – R.Boutaba).

12. Technical presentation

G.Pujolle did a technical presentation on “The new Internet Telecom”. He will distribute the slides via e-mail (AP56/24).

TC6 thanked G.Pujolle for his presentation.

The technical presentations in the next TC6 meeting will be done by A.Iyengar and R.Boutaba (AP56/25).

13. Working Group reports

13.1 WG 6.1

G.Leduc presented the report. 

The next WG 6.1 meeting will be in Heidelberg (15/11/01).

WG 6.1 sponsors six conferences at present. All of them are running according to plan.

13.2 WG 6.2

G.Pujolle presented the report.

It was agreed to have Networking and NAP series of conferences in alternate years, preferably in May. Networking’2002 is in Pisa and NAP’2003 is in USA.

WG 6.2 sponsors the Interworking series of conferences. The next one is in Perh, Australia, in 2002. G.Pujolle will indicate the date of the conference (AP56/26).

The pfHSN series of workshops is sponsored by WG 6.2. The next one is in Berlin, in March 2002.

It was agreed that the MMNS series of conferences will have WG 6.6 as main sponsor and WG 6.2 as co-sponsor.

The next WG 6.2 meeting will be during Networking’2002 in Pisa. Date of the meeting will be indicated by G.Pujolle (AP56/27).

An updated list of WG members will be prepared by G.Pujolle  (AP56/28).

13.3 WG 6.3

H.Perros presented the report.

The conference TOOLS is not sponsored by TC6. It will be deleted from the TC6 calendar.

The next WG 6.3 workshop in Canary Islands is in doubt. The final decision will be reported by H.Perros (AP56/29). The WG 6.3 workshop will be in Cyprus in 2003.

The TC6 sponsoring of the ATM/IP performance modelling series ends this year. 

The next WG 6.3 meeting will be during Networking’2002. The date will be indicated by H.Perros (AP56/30).

An updated list of WG members will be prepared by H.Perros (AP56/31).

13.4 WG 6.4

A.Casaca presented the report.

The WWW conference will be sponsored by TC6. This is a major conference with more than 1,000 participants. It was agreed that the organizers will pay a sponsorship fee of 5 US dollar per participant.

WG 6.4 will also sponsor a conference in Poland in 2002. This one will be organised by A.Grzech, who will provide detailed information when available.

A conference on mark-up languages for the Internet will not occur before 2003.

A date and place is required for the WG meeting (AP56/32-A.Iyengar).

13.5 WG 6.6

R.Boutaba presented the report.

The next WG meeting will take place during DSOM’01. The date will be indicated by R.Boutaba (AP56/33).

An updated list of WG 6.6 members will also be provided by R.Boutaba (AP56/34).

The situation of the IM series of conferences, and in special IM’01 and IM’03, was the subject of a detailed analysis. IM’01 had around 250 participants, which meant a decrease of about 50% in the number of participants in relation to the previous edition. There was a significant financial loss, which will be supported by IEEE ComSoc.

TC6 learned that IM’03 is planned for Colorado Springs in March 2003, which does not seem to be the best decision concerning location and date of the year. TC6 learned also that this was the opinion of a significant number of usual IM attendees.

R.Boutaba had talks with Salam Aidorous, chairman of IEEE CNOM, during IM’01. Both agreed that would be in the interest of IFIP TC6 and IEEE ComSoc to continue with the agreement, concerned with IM, signed by both societies in 1996. It was agreed that the agreement should have an amendment in order to reflect the new name of the conference, a new constitution of the steering committee, and to include also the NOMS series of conferences. The main spirit of collaboration should remain, i.e. IFIP TC6 is the main sponsor of IM with IEEE ComSoc as co-sponsor and IEEE ComSoc is the main sponsor of NOMS with IFIP TC6 as co-sponsor. An amendment of the agreement is going to be written and negotiated with IEEE ComSoc. After that, it will be signed by both parts. The preparation of the amendment should include P.Nedkov (AP56/35-A.Casaca, R.Boutaba).

TC6 decided that the existing steering committee of IM (W.Zimmer, B.Meandzija, D.Zuckermann) should cease its functions and that the new steering committee will be formed as defined in the amendement to the agreement. TC6 also recommended that the new steering committee should examine carefully the location and date of IM'’3 and try to change it if logistically possible.

Finally, TC6 unanimously approved the following motion: “TC6 is very concerned with the developments regarding IM and NOMS. TC6 has decided that the members of the IM steering committee be replaced immediately. Further, TC6 asks that date and site of IM’03 be changed to a date with fewer conflicts and to a city with lower priced accomodations, both to be decided by the new steering committee”.

A.Casaca informed that IM’01 proceedings was published by IEEE Press and that IFIP is claiming the copyright. This issue is in discussion with IEEE ComSoc.

13.6 WG 6.7

A.Casaca presented the report.

WG 6.7 is sponsoring two regular events, which are running according to plan.

A.Casaca indicated that he is concerned with the IFIP visibility in the IWAN conference which occurred in Japan. He will be in contact with the WG 6.7 chairman to ensure a high IFIP visibility for the next event (AP56/36).

13.7 WG 6.8

A.Casaca presented the report.

WG 6.8 is sponsoring PWC in a regular basis. It is also co-sponsoring Networking’2002.

13.8 TG 6.9

R.Puigjaner presented the report.

The Latin America Networking conference will occur every two year. The first edition will be in santa Fe, Argentina, in September 2002. The next one is foreseen for Brazil.

In order to optimize the offer of Networking conferences in Latin America, TC6 agreed that TG 6.9 and ACM Sigcom start talks on how to co-operate for this purpose (AP56/37-R.Puigjaner, L.Chapin).

Having in view a financial support of the Networking conference, regarding travel grants for invited speakers and students SADIO should approach IFIP DCSC directly. The result of this approach should be reported to TC6 (AP56/38-R.Puigjaner).

13. 9 WG 6.10

A.Casaca presented the report.

An updated list of the WG members is required (AP56/39-H. vanAs).

A date for the next WG meeting is also requested (AP56/40-H. van As).

It was commented that this group’s membership is very low and that optical networks is a fast evolving field, which justifies the organization of larger events than the one presently sponsored by the WG. In order to discuss the WG issues, including the ones previously referred, TC6 requests that the WG 6.10 chairman participates more often in TC6 meetings.

13.10 WG 6.11

V.Tschammer presented the report.

The addresses of the WG members will be sent to the TC6 chair (AP56/41-V.Tschammer).

The WG chairman proposed to cease the sponsoring of the “Universal Service Market” conference, which was agreed by TC6.

The E-Commerce conferences will take place in Zurich, Lisboa and Singapore in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively.

13.11 TC6 sponsored conferences

It was decided to remove the following events from the TC6 list of sponsored events: Networks, Seacomm and INDC.

13.12 WCC’2002

L.Chapin reported on the present situation of the communication track in WCC’2002. He reminded that the TC6 WG chairs are in charge of finding the right people to make the state of the art presentations. All the TC6 WGs are involved. Some funds are available from the WCC organisers. The deadline for papers is December 3rd, 2001. The deadline for tutorial presentations is October 15th, 2001.

14. Establishment of WG 6.9

After analysing the performance of TG 6.9, TC6 agreed that it its upgrade into a Working Group should be proposed to IFIP. After some discussion, a name for the group could not be agreed. Also the aims and scope need to be re-written. The formal proposal for the establishment of this WG will be done at the next TC6 meeting. Up to then,  name, aims, scope and membership list will be prepared (AP56/42 -–R.Puigjaner).

15. TC6 event planning

The TC6 event planning table was updated. It will be e-mailed by A.Casaca (AP56/43)

16. Advantages of organizing IFIP events

Additional indications on the advantage of organizing IFIP events will be introduced in the EOG, as reported in previous points.

17. Calendar of events

The TC6 calendar of events was updated. It will be e-mailed by A.Casaca (AP56/44).

18. Quality control of events

Because of lack of time, this point was adjourned for the next meeting.

19. Finances

The financial control maps supplied by IFIP during the IFIP Council meeting in March 2001 were analysed by TC6.

TC6 is concerned with the sharp decrease in the TC6 event proceeds from 1999 to 2000. On the other hand, the TC6 royalties increased from 1999 to 2000, which resulted in a TC6 fund provision in 2000 only slightly lower than in 1999. 

From the analysis of the maps, TC6 is also concerned that the TC6 fund balance in 2000 has not been increased by the difference between the TC6 fund provision (TC6 income) and the TC6 funded transactions (TC6 expenses). This occurs because every year a certain amount of the TC6 fund balance is moved to the Special Activity Fund of IFIP. This poses difficulties to the budget planning of TC6, if the planning is to be done along a certain number of years. The TC6 chair indicated that it would be adequate to have a TC6 fund balance that is approximately three times the yearly budget. This is a similar practice to the one followed at the IFIP level. Due to the fact that an appropriate yearly budget to TC6 seems to be in the order of 40Keuro, this means that the fund balance should be in the order of 120kEuro. Actually it is about 65kEuro at the end of 2000. In consequence, TC6 will request IFIP to stop moving the TC6 funds to the Special Activity Fund in order that the TC6 fund balance can reach a value that allows to safely finance the foreseen activities with continuity.

It is also recommended that TC6 should follow the practice of other TCs, by requesting the payment of grants to invited speakers and students, in developing countries activities, from the IFIP DCSC fund.

A request from the Electronic Publishing Conference organisers for not paying the sponsorship fee due to IFIP was not accepted by TC6. This will be communicated to IFIP Secretariat and ICCC (AP56/45).

TC6 approved a provisional budget for 2002. This budget takes into account the limited amount of the TC6 fund at present. The 2002 budget is 30,000 Euro, split as follows:
•	Grants to invited speakers for developing countries: 10,000 Euro
•	Best Paper Awards: 5,000 Euro
•	Student Travel grants: 10,000 Euro
•	Operating expenses: 5,000 Euro.

20. Grants and loans

It was approved to increase by 1,000 Euro the grant for the CLEI tutorial in Venezuela, to invite one more speaker. It should be confirmed that the organizers pay the lodging (AP56/46-R.Puigjaner).

The TC6 chairman indicated that, from TC6 funds, only travel tickets will be paid to invited speakers.

TC6 agreed to experiment the risk loan approach with one conference. This conference is FORTE/ PSTV’2002 in the USA. As organisers requested full cover of the risks, TC6 agreed that this can be done until the maximum amount of 5,000 Euro. G.Leduc will communicate this to the conference organisers (AP56/47). The profit taken by IFIP will be equal to the percentage of the loan relative to the fixed expenses of the conference. If the full risk is taken, all the profit of the conference, if any, will return to IFIP. The organisers have to present a detailed budget, which will be analysed by P.Nedkov, D.Khakhar and G.Leduc. These three people have to agree on the budget before the loan is given. The organisers should be told that IFIP reserves the right of auditing the conference accounting if judged necessary.

21. Next TC6 meetings

Meeting 57 (2001/2) will be in Zurich, Switzerland, on October 6 and 7, 2001, at the kind invitation of Harry Rudin.

TC6 accepted the kind invitation of Olli martikainen to stage the first TC6 meeting in 2002 in Finland. Therefore the Meeting 58 (2002/1) will be in Saariselka, Finland, on April 6 and 7, 2002.

22. AOB

TC6 acknowledges the splendid work that Herbert Leitold is doing in maintaining the TC6 web page. TC6 formally invites H.Leitold to attend one of the next TC6 meetings at his choice, so that he can present directly to TC6 the latest developments in the Web page. TC6 assumes the financial responsibility for this invitation.

This was the fifth time that TC6 met in South Africa. TC6 thanked Koes Koen for the splendid organization of the meeting and for the great trip that he prepared to visit the Table Mountain.