Abstract. In this paper, the concept of fairness as a future field of research in computer networks is investigated. We motivate the need of examining fairness issues by providing example future application scenarios where fairness support is needed in order to experience sufficient service quality. We further demonstrate how fairness definitions from political science and in computer networks are related and, finally, contribute with this work to the ongoing research activities by defining the fairness challenge with the purpose of helping direct future investigations to the white spots on the map of research in fairness.