Machine learning and cognitive computing for mobile communications and wireless networks Communication and network technology has witnessed recent rapid development and numerous information services and applications have been developed globally. These technologies have high impact on society and the way people are leading their lives. The advancement in technology has undoubtedly improved the quality of service and user experience yet a lot needs to be still done. Some areas that still need improvement include seamless wide area coverage high capacity hot spots low power massive connections low latency and high reliability and so on. Thus it is highly desirable to develop smart technologies for communication to improve the overall services and management of wireless communication. Machine learning and cognitive computing have converged to give some groundbreaking solutions for smart machines. With these two technologies coming together the machines can acquire the ability to reason similar to the human brain. The research area of machine learning and cognitive computing cover many fields like psychology biology signal processing physics information theory mathematics and statistics that can be used effectively for topology management. Therefore the utilization of machine learning techniques like data analytics and cognitive power will lead to better performance of communication and wireless systems