e-Photon/ONe Consortium

In the framework of the Information and Communication Technologies, Europe needs an international leadership in the field of photonic technology in general, and of optical networks in particular, from both a technological and theoretical point of view. European scientists from both universities and industries play a leading role in research on optical network technologies and architectures worldwide, while telecom operators are widely deploying next-generation optical networking solutions in long-haul as well as metro and access scenarios.

The e-Photon/ONe NoE aims at further integrating the outstanding expertise on optical networking available all across Europe, in order to provide the widest support to manufacturers and operators as well as to stimulate spin-offs from the academic world exploiting the obtained results. The NoE should then increase the significance of the European contribution to the definition of the next generation Internet and, at the same time, help European industries to be competitive on the global market of telecommunications technologies.

Participants to the NoE realise a very rich and outstanding research team, representing a large number of European countries, and including also a significant participation of telecom operators. In particular, the e-Photon/ONe involves 37 partners, coming from 12 member states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, United Kingdom), 3 candidate countries (Hungary, Poland, Turkey) and 2 third countries (Croatia, applicant country and target INCO West Balkan country, and Norway, associated country). The consortium is composed by 29 universities and other higher education institutes, 4 telecom operators, 1 manufacturer, 3 non-profit research centres. This composition is the result of the merger of two groups of researchers, namely the e-Photon and the ONe communities, with main expertise on optical components and networks respectively. The joint efforts of these two groups have been able to create a single, strong and complete network of excellence focused on optical networks architectures, protocols and technologies.

The large size and diversity of the e-Photon/ONe consortium makes effective integration a major challenge, and one of the main targets of the NoE activities.

European research in optical networks dates back to the RACE program. During the past ten years several projects have addressed to these topics, with a significant involvement of European manufacturers providing the technology necessary to implement testbeds and demonstrators. All these projects have been successfully completed and some of them obtained a very large, worldwide attention because of the exceptionally advanced level of the technology involved. Most of the institutions involved in the NoE actively participate and successfully collaborate in a number of those projects.

The research relevant to the NoE currently being performed by the participants and their roles and contributions to the JPA, as well as their previous collaborations to related European projects are described in this section.