mobicom-workflow

MobiCom Workflow

MobiCom's calendar is the part authors from single-deadline venues mis-plan most. There are

two rounds a year, each feeds a different edition, and inside each round the review

runs in two stages with a rebuttal. Plan the campaign around those facts, not around a

single "the deadline."

Which round, which edition

Before scheduling anything, pin two facts on the live CFP / HotCRP /deadlines page:

• Which edition does this round feed? The summer/fall round opening after MobiCom 2026

competes for MobiCom 2027. Submitting to it is a bet on next year's program, not this

year's.

• What is the AoE cutoff in local time? MobiCom prints an Eastern clock time for an

AoE deadline; convert once, for every coauthor (mobicom-submission).

Picking the round is a research-readiness decision: the earlier round gets your work in

front of reviewers sooner, but only if the over-the-air evaluation is actually done.

Backward schedule from the paper cutoff

Radio experiments do not compress the way a proof or an ablation does — testbeds break,

channels drift, and volunteers for mobility runs have to be scheduled. Work backward:

| Weeks before paper cutoff | Milestone |

|---|---|

| T-12 | Fit and round locked (mobicom-topic-selection); testbed reserved; IRB/site access if human mobility |

| T-8 | Core mechanism frozen; headline over-the-air experiment running, not just designed |

| T-5 | Baselines on tuned hardware; energy and channel measurement complete (mobicom-experiments) |

| T-3 | Full draft; provenance ledger closed (mobicom-reproducibility) |

| T-2 | Writing-style and related-work passes; supplementary/appendix split |

| T-1 (abstract cutoff) | Abstract registered on HotCRP; author list and conflicts entered |

| T-0 (paper cutoff, AoE) | Submission audit and upload (mobicom-submission) |

The rule of thumb from wireless deadline archaeology: **the mobility and failure-condition

experiments are always the ones cut when the schedule slips**, and they are the ones

reviewers value most. Protect them by running them before the final scale sweeps.

Inside the round: two stages plus rebuttal

Round opens -> submission
  Stage 1 review -> either EARLY REJECT (with reviews) or advance
  Stage 2 review -> reviews released -> REBUTTAL window -> decision
Decision space: accept / one-shot revision / reject

• An early reject after stage 1 returns reviews you can use for the next round — treat

it as data, not just a loss (mobicom-review-process).

• The rebuttal is short and bounded; plan the coauthor time for it now, because it lands

on a fixed clock you do not control (mobicom-author-response).

• A one-shot revision is a months-long commitment to a required-changes list, often with

the same reviewers — budget the experiments it will demand before accepting the plan.

Which edition a slip costs

Because rounds feed editions, missing the summer round does not just delay a few weeks — it

pushes the work to the winter round of the same edition or, if that slips too, to the next

edition entirely. Map the cost explicitly:

• On track for the summer round → decision months earlier.
• Slip to the winter round → same edition, later PC meeting.
• Slip again → next edition; a full year of program calendar.

State which of these the current plan is really on, in machine-days of remaining testbed

work, so "we'll make summer" is a claim with arithmetic behind it, not optimism.

During the long review silence

MobiCom reviews take weeks. Do not stall: extend the evaluation you already have (more

mobility traces, a deployment week, an energy sweep) so that whatever the letter says —

rebuttal, revision, or the next round — you are answering from a stronger position than the

submitted version.

Output format

[Round] which round + which edition it feeds + AoE cutoff (local)
[Readiness] over-the-air evaluation done? y/n — gating experiments named
[Backward schedule] milestones with dates; slip risks flagged
[Slip cost] which edition a miss pushes the work to
[Post-decision plan] rebuttal / revision / next-round readiness