Networks made of vehicles are a field of intense research, beacuse they are key for autonomous driving. There are several topics that can be evaluated; how can we increase the network coverage of vehicular networks without increasing the cost of the mobile infrastructure? How precisely can we model communications in network simulators without incurring in extraordinary computational costs?
5G opened the way to new technologies that make mobile networks much more dynamic than before. One feature is the creation of wireless backbones between the base-stations, to avoid connecting each of them through fiber. There are many interesting topics to be studied; how do we optimize a backbone? how do me make it robust to failures? can we reduce the power consumption by switching off some of the base-stations?
Low-Orbit Satellite Networks have changed the way people access the Internet, but present many challenges that are extremely exciting to be studied. How many satellites do we need to cover a certain area? What are the privacy implications of the use of LEO satellites? Can users be tracked?
Some widely used protocols still hide many vulnerabilities that need to be studied, exposed, and solved. TCP for instance, can be used to perform stealth scans of hosts behind a firewall, and we still don't have a solution for it, while the security of BGP is still much to be studied.
The ICT is responsible for a large portion of the amount of CO2 emitted in the athmosphere. Fixed networks are part of this problem, so we must reduce their impact. Can we modify BGP so that instead of choosing the best path, it chooses the path with the lowest CO2 emission? what are the security implications of it?
Quantum Key Distribution is a challenging research topic that may revolution the security of wired and wireless communications. What are the performances of QKD? can we model them and simulate them?
When local infrastructure is lacking, people build their own infrastructure with a distributed approach and local resources. Mesh networks are extremely challenging to design but offer a viable option for the roughly 4 billion people that are nowadays still disconnected.