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eMobility News - March 2010
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The FP7 Calls 4 and 5 were another example of eMobility’s effectiveness in coordinating research activities. With the support of eMobility, 5 IP proposals were successful. Read more about the winning proposals in this issue.

Apart from its impact on shaping ICT research in FP7, eMobility has already started discussing research priorities beyond for Framework Programme 8. Discussions on future research priorities started in the Steering Board last year. Read the report about some initial conclusions by Dr. Fiona Williams, who completed her successful term as Chair of eMobility by the end of 2009.

New Chair of eMobility is Dr. Werner Mohr from Nokia Siemens Networks, who has been involved in defining the directions of eMobility since it was launched.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue, and we would appreciate your comments.

Milon Gupta, Eurescom
Editor

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ACTIVITIES

+++ eMobility starts up discussion on FP8 priorities +++

The priorities and general planning for Framework Programme 8 (FP8) will be under discussion in all European countries and the European Commission during 2010 and 2011. Thus, now is the ideal time for eMobility to define its views on FP8 priorities and to communicate them to the relevant decision makers. By the end of 2009, the eMobility Steering Board was already well into the work of preparing key messages from eMobility for input to discussion on the future priorities for publicly funded research work.

At the Steering Board meeting held on 2 December 2009, first efforts were made to define research priorities. All participants agreed that the multitude of new applications that new communications systems can support in the domains of energy, transport and health will provide the basis for a range of potential solutions to the key societal challenges of climate change, traffic jams, and the ageing population.

Additionally, the interconnection of sensors for these applications and many others, the anticipated growth in the use of software hosted on cloud servers, and the rapidly increasing downloading of video over the internet will all contribute to an unprecedented traffic increase for networks.

Due to advances offered by LTE - the latest mobile networks, first introduced into commercial use in Sweden in late 2009 - and by fibre, today's network technologies are already a big step forward in coping with traffic increase in the near future. The technologies are there - what is needed are huge investments, which have to be stimulated by appropriate conditions.

However, if we look further, traffic will increase significantly up to a point where forthcoming mobile and fibre technologies will not be able to cope with that traffic increase in the mid to long term. Therefore, much research needs to be done to find more effective ways for using the scarce frequency spectrum and to make networks even more secure, trustworthy and affordable than today.

The first conclusions of the Steering Board on the key messages were presented to the assembled project managers of the Networks of the Future area at the Future Networks Concertation meeting held in Brussels on 27th January. The new broad focus of eMobility on the optical and fixed networks as well as mobile networks was appreciated by the participants as was the efforts and plans of eMobility to highlight the importance of network research to Europes' future economic success.

On 24 February 2010, the discussion on the messages continued at the first eMobility Steering Board meeting chaired by the new eMobility Chairman, Dr. Werner Mohr from Nokia Siemens Networks. The steering board split into groups to consider the issues and developed first approaches to answering a number of questions relevant to shaping the next EC framework programme.

The meeting concluded with a decision to develop a white paper addressing the issues in the coming months. The Steering Board meeting to be held on 1 June 2010 will continue the discussion. The Steering Board is interested to involve members in the discussion about the key messages. Drafts of the white paper will be published in the eMobility members area of the website.

If you would like to provide the Steering Board with your opinion on the topics, please send an e-mail presenting your input to Uwe Herzog at herzog[at]eurescom.eu by 16 April 2010. The working group preparing the first draft of the paper will be very happy to receive your support!

Dr. Fiona Williams, Ericsson
 

+++ More eMobility proposals successful in FP7 Calls 4 & 5 +++

eMobility organised a number of activities on coordinating Call 5 proposal preparation. A survey was conducted in April 2009 among eMobility members on their interest in Call 5 using a questionnaire. 76 replies were received. The feedback revealed that the strongest interest is in FP7 Work Programme Objective 1.1, "Network of the Future".

As a next step in the process of coordinating proposals, consortia were asked to make themselves known to the eMobility Steering Board and provide a brief sketch of their project idea. The respective proposal leaders were invited to a coordination meeting, which took place in Paris on 4 May 2009. A follow-up meeting was held in Brussels on 22 June 2009. Everybody who planned to lead a Call 5 proposal and who submitted a brief sketch of the idea was invited to this meeting. Following the meetings, the organisations who wanted to merge their proposal ideas did so.

So far, we have heard of the following five proposals, which were discussed and developed in the eMobility meetings and which were successful in the evaluation and contract negotiation:

EARTH: FP7 Call4, Challenge 1.1, IP - Energy Efficient solutions for Future Mobile Cellular Systems, Initiated by e.mobility white paper on Green Wireless, led by Alcatel-Lucent.

BeFEMTO: FP7 Call 4, Challenge 1.1, IP - Towards broadband Self-organsing Femtocells based on LTE-A, e.mobility helped to merge two proposas, led by Sagem Communications.

ARTIST4G: FP 7, Call 4, Challenge 1.1, IP - LTE Advanced concepts and investigations, led by Orange.

EXALTED: FP7 Call 5, Challenge 1,1, IP - Machine to Machine Communications based on LTE technology, initiated by e.mobility white paper on M2M, led by Sagem Com.

Smart Santander: FP7 Call 5, Challenge 1.6, IP - First project on Smart Cities, aimed to sensorise the City of Santander Spain, University of Surrey Campus, Guildford, UK with more than 25,000 sensors of different types for various Smart City and Campus applications.


UPCOMING EVENTS

12 – 13 April 2010
Celtic Event
Valencia, Spain
http://www.celtic-initiative.org/Events/Celtic-Event10-Valencia/welcome.asp

13 – 14 April 2010
The European RTD Framework Programmes: From economic recovery to sustainability
Valencia, Spain
http://www.r2sconference.eu

15 - 16 April 2010
Fifth Future Internet Assembly
Valencia, Spain
eMobility will be involved in the programme
Further information:
http://www.future-internet.eu/home/future-internet-assembly/valencia-april-2010.html

19 May 2010
5th Workshop on Shaping the Future of Mobile and Wireless Communications
Athens, Greece
Further information: http://www.emobility.eu.org

20 May 2010
6th Meeting of the Working Group on Leading Edge Applications
Athens, Greece
Further information: http://www.emobility.eu.org

16 - 18 June 2010
Future Network & MobileSummit 2010
Florence, Italy
eMobility will be involved in the conference and the exhibition
Further information: http://www.futurenetworksummit.eu/2010/

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Contact person:
Dr. Werner Mohr
Chair of eMobility - The Mobile and Wireless Communications and Technology Platform