Chairman's Message
Welcome to Budapest!
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It’s a great pleasure for me and a great honor and proud for the Hungarian telecommunications community to cordially welcome all the kind participants of the 13th International Telecommunications Network Strategy and Planning Symposium, the Networks 2008 in our capital, Budapest.
The Networks conferences have a 28-year history of dealing with the more and more complex planning issues in telecommunications networks, attracting participants from all over the world: network operators, service providers, manufacturers, software companies, system integrators, researchers from universities and industry, marketing experts and policy-makers, regulators. Networks conferences have moved around the world in its history. Networks was first hosted in Paris in 1980, then at Brighton (UK, 1983), Innisbrook (Florida, USA, 1986), Palma de Mallorca (Spain, 1989), and Kobe (Japan, 1992). It came first to Budapest in 1994, and then traveled to Sydney, Sorrento, Toronto, Munich, Vienna and finally at New Delhi (2006). Networks 2008 is the first occasion that the International Management and Scientific Committee (IMSC) has invited a country to organize the conference for a second time. Over the years, the scope of the conference has broadened from planning and optimization questions of telecommunication networks to strategic and planning issues of infocommunication networks, including all types of converging telecom and computer networks.
The motto of Networks 2008 is “Convergence in Progress”. Networks 2008 will focus on the challenges of planning networks to deliver on the promise of convergence of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Next Generation Networks (NGN). The challenges are many: how to build high performance networks for converged services where every step is cost justified and drives profitable growth, where difficult issues of scalability, end-to-end network performance, network management, network and service control, reliability, security and interoperability are planned and then realized, and where flexibility is maintained to allow experimentation with new applications that can foster new and compelling revenue streams for operators. Unleashing the synergic value of convergence and the reduction in the number of network platforms requires innovation in network planning methods, scalable architectures, new optimization algorithms, and understanding the tradeoffs between different technology choices and migration paths.
Networks 2008 keeps the traditional structure of Plenary Sessions (4) and parallel Technical Sessions (3X7), the conference program involves both invited state-of-the art presentations and scientific lectures, as international experts present their latest findings and share experiences in network strategy, planning, operations, management, control and design. Beyond the scientific sessions 12 tutorial lectures covering the most modern networking issues are also included in the program. An exhibition presenting new software products and tools using recent results and developments in network planning and optimization is also attached at the conference location. The social events, as Welcome reception, Get-together party and Gala dinner, are organic parts of the conference program, providing additional opportunities for the exchange of views, deepening friendships and enjoying Hungarian hospitality and some beauties of Budapest.
I would like to express my grateful thanks to all persons having actively participated in the organization of Networks 2008, in particularly IMSC members, TPC, NAB and LOC chairs and members. We are grateful to our patrons for their financial support and to our sponsors for their professional support in the organization. We are equally grateful to all of the authors having prepared good presentations, to the reviewers making possible to choose the best contributions.
Dear Colleagues: participants, speakers, session chairs, organizers, accompanying persons: thanks for your participation, make a good use of the content of the proceedings of all the 13 Networks conferences on a pendrive, and enjoy the Networks 2008 and your stay in Budapest!
Prof. Dr. Gyula Sallai
Department of Telecommunications and Media Informatics of Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME-TMIT),
Scientific Association for Infocommunications (HTE),
Chair, Networks 2008 International Management and Scientific Committee
