Terabit Low Cost Networks for Consumer Multimedia Applications

这项建议寻求建立一个新的合作研究，包括英国、意大利和中国（大陆和香港）的学术团体，并与业界合作，比较和对比世界各地消费者信息服务的发展，并在此基础上确定下一代局域网基础设施的可能需求。以此为框架，它将寻求研究适合广泛使用的网络模型，开发一个创新的网络示范。我们希望通过这项提案召集一组专家，他们能够以一种协调的多学科方式解决这个问题，考虑到信息服务商业交付的不同方法及其在世界各地的使用，以一种我们在英国所知的新方式。因此，我们相信合作将为参与者的个人研究计划带来更多的附加价值。在技术层面，该集团在材料和设备物理，系统，网络设计和服务交付等领域具有互补的专业知识。该项目将寻求制定多层技术路线图，并确定正在考虑的网络可能的技术限制。当所有合作伙伴收集到足够的服务需求信息后，我们将开发一系列可能的架构以供进一步研究，并确定适合部署的潜在设备和子系统。然而，为了集中这项活动，我们还希望开发一种新的架构，该架构的设计形式类似于传统的无源光网络，但其形式可能以类似于企业需求的方式商品化。将提供从中央交换机到用户的直接通信，而无需中间交换，这是满足未来业务需求的关键。然而，在这个系统中，我们建议在企业局域网中引入先进的编码技术，使成本更低，最终采用非冷却组件。项目的成功有望带来新的项目，(i)与工业界合作开发研究（服务需求有望增长），（ii）在新的学科，如生物医学领域，这些概念将变得越来越重要，我们的合作者也有活动，（iii）研究围绕组件和网络本身的基本问题。

This proposal seeks to build a new collaborative research study involving academic groups in the UK, Italy and China (mainland and Hong Kong), in collaboration also with industry, to compare and contrast the development of consumer information services around the world, and on that basis determine likely requirements for next generation LAN infrastructures. Using this as a framework it will then seek to research network models suitable for widespread use, developing an innovative network demonstrator.We have sought through this proposal to draw together a group of experts who are able to address the problem in a coordinated multidisciplinary manner, taking account of different approaches to the commercial delivery of information services and their use around the world, in a new manner not available to our knowledge in the UK. We believe that the collaboration will therefore bring much added value to the participant's individual research programmes. At the technical level, the group has complementary expertise in areas ranging from materials and device physics, through systems, to network design and service delivery.The project will seek to develop multi-layered technical roadmaps and determine likely technology limits for the networks under consideration. When sufficient information is gathered by all partners on service requirements, we will develop a range of possible architectures for further study, and identify potential devices and sub-systems suitable for deployment. In order however to focus this activity, we wish also to develop a novel architecture which has been devised to have a form similar to conventional passive optical networks, but in a form which could potentially be commoditised in a manner similar to enterprise requirements. Direct communications from the central exchange to the user without intermediate switching will be provided, a key to future service requirements. However in this system, we propose to introduce advanced coding techniques used in enterprise LANs which allow lower cost and ultimately uncooled components to be adopted. The success of the project can be expected to result in new projects, (i) in exploiting the research in collaboration with industry (where service requirements can be expected to grow), (ii) in new disciplines, such as in the biomedical fields where the concepts will become increasingly important and where our collaborators also have activities and (iii) in researching the fundamental issues surrounding the components and networks themselves.