Taimoor Ul Islam

I am a systems and network architect working on the future of broadband and predictable, real-time wireless. My research sits at the intersection of Open RAN, 6G, massive MIMO, and hyper-reliable low-latency communication, with an emphasis on building real systems and proving them out in the field.

I lead wireless research at WiCI, where I help drive three federally funded efforts that together represent more than $68M of investment in next-generation wireless infrastructure: the $16M ARA Wireless Living Lab (NSF PAWR), the $42M ACCoRD Open RAN testing initiative (NTIA NOFO-1), and the $10M ArMORED project on energy-efficient mMIMO O-RAN with Skylark Wireless and Eridan (NTIA NOFO-2).

Before the PhD, I spent six years in telecom, planning, deploying, and troubleshooting networks for hundreds of thousands of customers in Pakistan. That work is where the rural broadband mission started, and you can read the longer version on the Story page.

I care about the roughly three billion people still on the wrong side of the connectivity gap, and I think the next decade of wireless research has to take that seriously. Most of my time goes into making the systems we build genuinely useful in places where the network has to keep working, not where the spreadsheets say it should.

News

Jun 01, 2026	Joined WiCI as Research Assistant Professor. Continuing work on Open RAN, mMIMO, and rural broadband across the ARA, ACCoRD, and ArMORED projects.
May 10, 2026	Received the ISU Graduate College Research Excellence Award for 2026.
Feb 23, 2026	Received the GPSS Research Excellence Award for 2026 from the ISU Graduate and Professional Student Senate.
Jul 01, 2025	Our paper “AraRACH: Enhancing NextG Random Access Reliability” won the Best Paper Award at IEEE NetSoft 2025.
Mar 15, 2025	The ARA Wireless Living Lab paper appeared in Computer Networks. It documents the full design and deployment of the testbed.

Latest Posts

Selected Publications

ComNet

Design and Implementation of ARA Wireless Living Lab for Rural Broadband and Applications

Taimoor Ul Islam, Joshua Ofori Boateng, Md Nadim, and 1 more author

Computer Networks, 2025

Bib

@article{islam2025ara,
  title = {Design and Implementation of {ARA} Wireless Living Lab for Rural Broadband and Applications},
  author = {Islam, Taimoor Ul and Boateng, Joshua Ofori and Nadim, Md and others},
  journal = {Computer Networks},
  volume = {263},
  pages = {111188},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Elsevier}
}

NetSoft

AraRACH: Enhancing NextG Random Access Reliability in Programmable Wireless Living Labs

Joshua Boateng, Tianyi Zhang, Guoying Zu, and 2 more authors

In Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft), 2025

Awarded Bib

Best Paper Award

@inproceedings{boateng2025ararach,
  title = {{AraRACH}: Enhancing {NextG} Random Access Reliability in Programmable Wireless Living Labs},
  author = {Boateng, Joshua and Zhang, Tianyi and Zu, Guoying and Islam, Taimoor Ul and others},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft)},
  year = {2025},
}

MERIF

ARA PAWR: Enabling Wireless Experiments with Programmable COTS RAN and X-Haul Platforms

Taimoor Ul Islam, Md Nadim, Guoying Zu, and 1 more author

In Midscale Experimental Research Infrastructure Forum (MERIF), 2024

Awarded Bib

Best Demo Award

@inproceedings{islam2024merif,
  title = {{ARA} {PAWR}: Enabling Wireless Experiments with Programmable {COTS} {RAN} and {X-Haul} Platforms},
  author = {Islam, Taimoor Ul and Nadim, Md and Zu, Guoying and others},
  booktitle = {Midscale Experimental Research Infrastructure Forum (MERIF)},
  year = {2024},
}

WiNTECH

AraMIMO: Programmable TVWS mMIMO Living Lab for Rural Wireless

Taimoor Ul Islam, Tianyi Zhang, and others

In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation & Characterization (WiNTECH), 2023

Awarded Bib

Best Paper Award

@inproceedings{islam2023aramimo,
  title = {{AraMIMO}: Programmable {TVWS} {mMIMO} Living Lab for Rural Wireless},
  author = {Islam, Taimoor Ul and Zhang, Tianyi and others},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th ACM Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation \& Characterization (WiNTECH)},
  year = {2023},
}

MobiCom

ARA PAWR: Wireless Living Lab for Smart and Connected Rural Communities

Taimoor Ul Islam, Joshua Boateng, and others

In Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (ACM MobiCom), 2023

DOI Bib

@inproceedings{islam2023arapawr,
  title = {{ARA} {PAWR}: Wireless Living Lab for Smart and Connected Rural Communities},
  author = {Islam, Taimoor Ul and Boateng, Joshua and others},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (ACM MobiCom)},
  pages = {1--3},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {ACM},
  doi = {10.1145/3570361.3614068}
}