Message from the Chair

On behalf of the conference program committee, I would like to welcome you to the Wireless Optical Communication Conference 2003 (WOCC 2003). Also, I would like to thank all the sponsors, and co-organizers for their support, all the quest speakers and session speakers, many of them from far away places overseas, for their participation, and all the committee members for their hard work that makes WOCC 2003 successful.

WOCC 2003 is the 12th conference that has been held annually and devoted to telecommunication professionals for exchanging ideas and information. The conference is co-organized by a number of Chinese-American professional societies and associations and is sponsored by several major corporations locally as well over the world. I am very pleased to say that even during this telecommunication down turn, the sponsors and co-organizers still support us enthusiastically. I hope that you will find the same enthusiasm among the speakers and attendees of this conference.

The conference theme for WOCC 2003 is: "Meeting the Broadband Challenge: The Interplay between Technologies and Applications for the Mobile Internet Era." Communication is part of the human nature. Telecommunication has been providing the tools for the modern society to communicate for more than one hundred years, though the technologies have evolved. As you all know, the telecommunication industry had a tremendous growth a few years ago fueled by the demand of Internet and mobile phone usages that surpassed Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) usages recently. As a result, there is a build up of excessive capacity in terms of new networks and equipment. There is a general belief that such a build up is one of the major causes of the recent unprecedented telecommunication industry slow down. When the industry will recover is hard to predict. However, there should be no question about that it will. The remaining question is what will it take to make the industry grow again. Is broadband access the answer, while there is an excessive capacity in the backbone? Do we, as human being, need to communicate more and using more than one means? Do we, in our line of work, need more applications and services from the communication networks? How about the growth opportunities in the other parts of the world? What can the telecommunication industry do for the heightening homeland security? The rich program of this conference provides the opportunities to discuss and debate these questions and other related topics. I am sure that the eminent speakers will share their views with us and inspire us all. As you can see from the program, there are three tracks that include sessions in wireless, optical, and multimedia. As you might note, we have successfully added the multimedia track since last year. The conference sessions cover a wide range of topics in broadband networks, technologies, applications, mobility, and the next generation Internet aspects of the conference theme.

Therefore, please come and enjoy the conference. I hope that your experience with WOCC is a fruitful and long lasting one, for I am very sure that WOCC will continue its success for a long time with your support and participation.

Conference Chair
Dr. David Chang