Recent advances in wireless and mobile communications provide ample opportunities for introducing new services. Supporting multimedia applications and services over wireless networks is challenging due to constraints and heterogeneities such as limited battery power, limited bandwidth, random time-varying fading effect, different protocols and standards, stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. Cross-layer design methodologies hold great promise for addressing these challenges and providing reliable and high-quality end-to-end performance in wireless multimedia communications.

This issue solicits the state-of-the-art approaches and technical solutions in the area of cross-layer optimized wireless multimedia communications and networking. The issue will provide a compelling forum for researchers and practitioners to present their results. Original contributions, previously unpublished and not currently under review by another journal, are solicited in relevant areas including (but not limited to) the following:

• Architectures for wireless multimedia communications
• Multimedia delivery over various types of wireless networks (3G, 4G, ad hoc networks, WLAN, WMAN, or hybrid networks)
• End-to-end QoS support for wireless networks
• Multimedia delivery to energy-constrained embedded devices
• Caching and content management in WLANs and WMANs
• Interaction among medium access control (MAC), radio link control (RLC), and routing protocols for media delivery over multi-hop wireless networks
• Wireless video sensor networks
• Multimedia delivery for broadband vehicular networks
• Secure multimedia communications
• System prototypes and experiences with broadband wireless multimedia delivery

Please note that submitted papers must explicitly address cross-layer design issues.

Prospective authors should follow the IEEE J-SAC manuscript format described in the Information for Authors. Authors MUST submit their manuscripts through the Microsoft Conference Management Toolkit (CMT) at https://msrcmt.research.microsoft.com/COWMC2006/CallForPapers.aspx, together with a short abstract (approximately 150 words) in the CMT website form. In addition, the mandatory cover page is not included in the page count. The cover page should include paper title, abstract, list of keywords indicating the paper's topic area, authors' full names, affiliations with complete addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses. Please note potential authors should create their own accounts through the CMT peer review website before submitting manuscript(s). CMT will accept manuscripts in PDF format only. There will be one round of reviewers and acceptance will be limited to those papers requiring only moderate revisions. The following timetable will apply: