Towards Digital Optical Networks COST Action 291 Final Report [Paperback]

COST  the acronym for European COoperation in Science and Technology  is the oldest and widest European intergovernmental network for cooperation in - search. Established by the Ministerial Conference in November 1971, COST is presently used by the scientific communities of 35 European countries to coop- ate in common research projects supported by national funds. The funds provided by COST  less than 1% of the total value of the projects  support the COST cooperation networks (COST Actions) through which, with ? 30 million per year, more than 30,000 European scientists are involved in - search having a total value which exceeds ? 2 billion per year. This is the financial worth of the European added value which COST achieves. A bottom up approach (the initiative of launching a COST Action comes from the European scientists themselves), ? la carte participation (only countries interested in the Action participate), equality of access (participation is open also to the scientific communities of countries not belonging to the European - ion) and flexible structure (easy implementation and light management of the research initiatives) are the main characteristics of COST.

The objective of the COST 291 Action Towards Digital Optical Networks was to focus on novel network concepts, subsystems and architectures. Its aim was to enable telecommunication networks to exploit the features and properties of photonic technologies.

COST  the acronym for European COoperation in Science and Technology  is the oldest and widest European intergovernmental network for cooperation in - search. Established by the Ministerial Conference in November 1971, COST is presently used by the scientific communities of 35 European countries to coop- ate in common research projects supported by national funds. The funds provided by COST  less than 1% of the total value of the projects  support the COST cooperation networks (COST Actions) through which, with ? 30 mil)