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A newly launched UK project will, it is hoped, spawn the next generation of super-fast adaptable communications networks. Christopher Sell reports.

A £20m

project was launched in March, bringing together four

universities and some of the world’s leading multinationals.

Known as the Heterogeneous IP Networks (HIPNet) project, it will focus on the design and modelling of next-generation Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Networks.

ICT contributes a significant proportion to the UK’s GDP and is vital to the country’s economy, according to Dr Ken Guild of Essex University, one of the principal researchers on the project. In the past five years the UK has developed one of the most competitive telecommunications markets in the world, with 3G services beginning to make an impact and plans being drawn up for the introduction of 4G and ultra wide-band wireless systems.

Guild said that ubiquitous real-time multi-media communications will dramatically increase the requirement for high-speed access and transport.

The scale of these next-generation, packet-based networks and the interactions between them will produce data behaviour that is difficult to model or predict.

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