SIGMOBILE 1998-99 Annual Report

Conference Highlights

1. MobiCom'98, Dallas, Texas
   

   The Fourth Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom'98) was held 25-30 October 1998, in Dallas, Texas. The conference sessions took place in the Omni Dallas Hotel Park West, located about 5 miles from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

   MobiCom'98 marked the fourth consecutive year of growth for this conference series. We received 147 research paper submissions from around the globe, a growth in number of submissions of about 45% over the previous year's conference. Of these, 27 papers were selected for presentation. Although the largest number of submissions, as was the case in 1997, came from the United States, a third of the accepted papers were from outside the United States.

   Three workshops were held in parallel on the day following the conference (on October 1, 1997). Of these, the workshop on wireless multimedia was new (additional information about the workshops is provided in Section IV).

   Overall, MobiCom'98 featured an excellent technical program on the cutting edge of mobile computing and networking. We also had an enjoyable social program, including welcoming reception, a dinner banquet, and a "Night on the Town".

2. MobiCom'99, Seattle, Washington
   

   The Fifth Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom'99) was held August 15-20, 1999, in Seattle, Washington.

   We believe that MobiCom'99 was by far the best MobiCom we have ever organized. The conference was held at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center., a world-class conference facility located in the heart of downtown Seattle and on the waterfront. Three social events with sumptuous meals and liquor delighted the attendees. These events included (1) the Chairman's Welcome Reception, with an accompanying first-ever industry exhibition; (2) the Dinner Banquet at the world famous Space Needle; and (3) the Student, Faculty Dinner Cruise, which included a three-hour cruise of the Puget Sound, with food and spirits served.

   We pushed the limit on every aspect of the conference -- from tutorials, to panels, to papers, to workshops, to social events, to facilities. Several highlights and noteworthy facts include:

   • MobiCom'99 had over 500 participants this year up more than 100% from last year. For the first time in its history, the conference was completely sold out. We were unable to accommodate everyone who wanted to be at this event and had to turn people away, as our facilities were stretched to the limit. Both conference hotels were completely sold out, and we had to add a third to accommodate attendees at a reasonable rate. Over 30 countries were represented at this conference
   • MobiCom'99 received the highest number of paper submissions (170) in its history, up 121% from just four years ago, and the highest number of tutorial proposals (18), up 184% from last year.
   • A record number of professional organizations (9) from around the world endorsed and cooperated with MobiCom, several for the first time like -- the IEE (UK), the IEICE (Japan), the USENIX Association, and ACM SIGMOD
   .
   • A record number of corporations (24) financially supported MobiCom'99, and a >record number participated in the exhibition that we tried for the first time this year
   • MobiCom'99 had the highest number of tutorials (up 60% from last year), the highest number of co-located workshops, and the highest number of invited speakers
   .
   • For the first time in its history, we had reporters from mainstream press cover the conference. Reports about the conference, the speakers, the panels, etc., were published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (August 18, 1999), Wired News (August 17, August 18, and August 20), ABCnews.com (August 20), MicroNews, etc.

   The technical program consisted of eleven non-overlapping sessions, including a new, highly entertaining "MobiCom Challenges" session with five papers describing wild ideas and technical challenges facing our community in the next century.

   Overall, we were very happy with the way MobiCom'99 turned out. It was a remarkable success, and we hope to repeat this success in Boston, Massachusetts, the venue for MobiCom 2000.