Communication Theory Technical Committee Meeting
ICC '97
Palais de Congres, Montreal, Canada


1. The meeting was called to order at 5:10 PM.

2. Peter McLane announced that Lek Ariyavisitakul of AT&T is
 replacing Sami Hinedi as our committee's secretary.

3. Conference reports

ICC '97 (Montreal, 6/8-6/12) (E. Biglieri, S. Hinedi,
Y. Bar-Ness): Ender Ayanoglu addressed the committee.
He reported that ICC'97 was successfully run and he
thanked the three representatives.

GLOBECOM '97 (Phoenix, 11/2-11/7) (J. Livingston, K.
Ben-Letaif): Jay Livingston addressed the committee.
There were 738 total submitted papers to GLOBECOM'97.
50 sessions were formed. Our committee has organized/
co-organized 7 sessions. There will be 3 workshops
and 18 tutorials.

There was a long discussion about the bidding process
for papers. Some of our members expressed reservation
about the current bidding process.

ICC '98 (Atlanta, 6/7-6/11) (E. Sousa, G. Stuber):
Elvino Sousa addressed the committee. The web site for
ICC'98 is
http://www.ee.gatech.edu/conferences/icc98.
The bidding process will be based on abstracts and only the
session organizers can have access to those abstracts.
Proposed sessions include:
P. Hoeffer, Modulation and Coding
A. Svenson, Multi-User Detection
P. Robertson, Iterative Decoding
C-L I, Wireless Local Loop
A. Goldsmith, Wireless Communications
Multicarrier Systems
Tutorial proposals are to be forwarded to E. Sousa
by August 16.
The TPC (Stuber) wants to organize 10 overview sessions,
similar to VTC, which will be made up of papers from open
calls for papers.

GLOBECOM '98 (Sydney) We received 8 volunteers for TPC
representatives for this conference. B. Vucetic, K. C. Chen,
and K. Rose were selected based on the criteria of location,
experience with similar organizations, and being a newcomer.
The following session proposals were made:
K. Fazel, Multi-Carrier Spread Spectrum
J. Barry, Equalization
U. Mengali, Synchronization
A. Yongacoglu, Coding and Modulation
G. Raleigh, Multicarrier for Non-Spread-Spectrum Systems
N. Vojcic, Multiuser Detection
D. Falconer, Space-Time Signal Processing
M. Win, Propagation
H. Sari, Multiple Access Techniques

ICC '99 (Vancouver) Vijay Bhargava is the Technical Program
Chair for this conference. The chosen TPC representatives
(again based on the criteria described above) are P. Ho,
A. Yongacoglu, and G. Cairer. The following session proposals
were made:
S. Ariyavisitakul, Equalization
U. Mengali, Synchronization
G. Raleigh, Information Theory in Time-Varying Channels
A. Goldsmith, Shannon-Like Capacity for Wireless
G. Raleigh, Space-Time Signal Processing
H. Sari, Multiple Access Techniques
K. Fazel, Wireless Indoor Communications

CTMC-6 (Phoenix, 11/2-11/7, 1997) (N. Beaulieu, C. Georghiades):
Norm Beaulieu addressed the committee. 92 papers were received.
Unlike the previous CTMCs, there was no passing papers between
GLOBECOM and CTMC this time. Three reviews were received for
82% of the submitted papers, and 2 reviews for each remaining
paper.

CTMC-7: (Sydney, Nov. 1998) R. Kennedy will be the General Chair
of this Mini-Conference. K. Ben-Letaif will be the Technical
Program Chair.

There was a discussion on the approval process for the CTMC.

MILCOM '97 (Monterey, 11/2-11/5) G. Saulnier, M. Medley
and C. Robertson were interested in becoming representatives
working with MILCOM.

(4. Workshop reports)l

Workshop '97 (C. Robertson, A. Polydoros, A. Kakaes): Paul
Kakaes stated that the Workshop was held April 27-30, in
Tucson, Arizona. The technical program included sessions
on equalization, source coding, turbo codes, multimedia
communications, and optical communications. The workshop
was well attended (67 registrants with 21 spouses).

Workshop '98 (S. Miller, J. Winters, K. Dominiak): The
workshop will be held in Captiva Island, Florida in April.
The Technical Program Chair is J. Winters. P. Kakaes will be
the Treasurer.

Workshop '99 (West Coast TBA): C. Robertson will be the General
Chair. A. Goldsmith and L. Cimini will be the TPCs.

5. Other Businesses:
J. LoCicero made a proposal for having CTMC in ICC'99.
Y. Bar-Ness had volunteered to be the General Chair.
There was a discussion with mainly favorable opinions.
A motion for a vote was made. The vote was in favor of
CTMC'8 at ICC'99.

P. McLane summarized the TAC meeting. There was a proposal
made at the TAC meeting for a Wireless Communications Committee
(WCC) to be formed from Radio/Satellite/PCS Committees. The
question to our committee members was, whether we should also
join the WCC. After a discussion, our members wanted to know
more about the composition and the nature of this new committee.
The general feelings were, to join the committee only if we do
not lose our identity.

A. Glavieux announced the international Symposium on Turbo
Codes & Related Topics to be held in Brest, France, on
September 3-5, 1997.

6. Minutes of the meeting at GLOBECOM'96 were approved unanimously.

7. The meeting adjourned at 6:30 PM.