Broadband Islands: Towards Integration

Different topics related to European research policy and funding in the area of broadband communications are explored in this volume. Consideration is given both to the obvious scientific aspects and to the political/strategic dimension accorded by its RACE context. Five major sections form the bulk of the book. The first provides a survey of what is currently happening in the area of very high speed communication. The application issue is reinforced by the next part, where market trends are addressed as well as upcoming applications for very high speed networks. The third chapter is broad ranging and includes an examination of architectures from workstations via QoS and domain management to multimedia documents. The upper layers of the OSI/RM are addressed in the fourth section, with the typical problems arising if multimedia information is to be transmitted and processed forming the core of the discussion. The following chapter considers the lower layers' issues. These 5 major sections are followed by some 12 papers considering a diverse range of topics. A discussion on Exploiting the Changing Telecommunications Where can Europe Succeed? concludes the volume. It attempts to identify both Europe's current position and its future prospects in this rapidly developing market - with a firm recommendation that the three major players, Europe, the USA and Japan will have to join forces.