Extremely dense wireless networks [Guest Editorial]

The ever growing demand from mobile network users is pushing the current wireless technologies toward their limits. As a matter of fact, not even the most optimistic promises from emerging standards, such as LTEAdvanced and IEEE 802.11ac/ad/af, will be able to satiate the huge appetite for bandwidth of the future users of 5G networks — at least, unless the size of cells is reduced dramatically. This situation will soon create a desperate need for extremely dense wireless networks (DenseNets).