[Technologies for the Next "Killer" Applications]

      Communication networks in the new millennium will be drastically different from those currently deployed. It is a revolution of more than the next-generation of data networking. It is the ongoing revolution in data networking, voice networking and their convergence, optical networking, wireless networking, broadband access technologies and standardized open interfaces for software programs for new services and network management. It is about a vision of how networks will work together to deliver future services seamlessly and reliably.


      This network revolution is fueled by tremendous advances in technologies, especially in wireless and optical. Tremendous cost and size reductions in digital signal processing make it feasible to use very sophisticated and highly adaptive algorithms from modulation theory, information theory, and antenna array processing in this revolution which will enable the wireless capacity to increase 100 fold.  With DWDM been proved as the technology of choice for the long haul, back bone fiber optical communication networks, scientists in the industrial laboratories are continuing to add more wavelengths into the fiber strand.  With the possibility of multiplexing more than 1000 wavelengths, the capacity per fiber may eventually exceed 10 Tb/s. In fact the advances in wireless and optical technologies will allow them to be deployed in new geographical domains.

      Wireless is extending both into the home and business for short range communication and into campuses for local loop replacements and high speed data distribution, while optical fiber communications have also penetrated into the local and metropolitan area networks.  With more and more companies starting to provide digital network service via cable and xDSL, fiber to the central office and fiber to the curb have become reality. We may even see fiber to the home in the near future.  Another dramatic change in the past a few years is that DWDM technology is evolved from a mere virtual transportation pipeline into a means for optical networks.  At one side we have seen the national scale optical network demonstrations like MONET project.  On the other hand, different players have jumped onto the wagon of providing end-to-end network solutions deploying optical crossconnects and optical add/drop multiplexers for routing, network provisioning, system protection and restoration.


      As equipment vendors are meeting the demands for ever increasing capacity of the wireless and optical networks, service providers are finding new revenue generating applications to satisfy the customers' desire to be untethered from any wiring and to have instant access to large bandwidth. WWW is becoming to stand for Worldwide Wireless Web. In fact, it has been predicted that network traffic in the future will not be dominated by human to human, but by machine to machine communication. There will be a large number of information appliances scattered in the home and in business, exchanging data periodically over the wireless and optical networks. The Internet has become a dominating part of the daily life that these information appliances will most likely be supporting IP applications and expecting IP connections from the network. Even though no one can predict what will be the next "killer" IP applications, it is clear that both wireless and optical technologies will be the key components enabling such applications to offered in future communication networks.

      The goal of WOCC-2000 is to bring together scientists, engineers and industry leaders working in the fields of wireless and optical networking. There will be presentations on the latest advances in wireless technologies, such as UMTS and cdma200, optical technologies, such as DWDM and optical switching and the new applications and services that can be supported by these new technologies. Attendees will also hear from experts on how innovative applications, especially those developed on the Internet Protocol, can be supported by the network infrastructure with the required quality of service (QoS) guarantees, intelligent networking and seamless operations across networks