Welcome

The number of Internet users exceeded 760 million around the world as of the end of 2003.The broadband population has had a year-on-year increase of 167.1 % and the number of broadband users exceeded 120 million according to "Internet white paper 2004". The spread of the Internet in the Asian Pacific Rim countries, which includes Japan, has been especially remarkable. The Asian Internet population of 270 million now exceeds those of Europe and North America, and broadband is being adopted more rapidly here than anywhere else.

The Internet permeates life deeply with its various services such as the convergence of communication and broadcast, e-government, and real time video distribution.It is clear that a further explosion in Internet traffic is unavoidable given both the increase in broadband Internet population and the new services. Obviously we need a breakthrough technology that will allow the network infrastructure to support the huge traffic volumes expected.

Various telecommunication technologies have been proposed in Japan, which has a core competency in opto-electronic technologies.We note that the Photonic Internet is becoming reality with the introduction of photonic technologies into the IP backbone.The concept of MPlS was proposed to IETF in 2000, and the HIKARI-Router, the world's first full-scale GMPLS equipment, was demonstrated at SuperComm2001.

iPOP2005 is the international conference that will convince you that the IP and Optical technologies are the breakthrough needed for the next-generation network infrastructure. It is intended to share the latest results among industry and academia, and experience in state-of-the-art of “IP and Optical Networking technologies”. Following this theme, we intend to demonstrate GMPLS network equipment (IP routers, SONET/SDH XCs, Optical/Photonic XCs), GMPLS protocol test equipment, GMPLS network operation support tools, Optical Switches, and other related devices. Additionally, we will provide a showcase for GMPLS interoperability, which is the first demonstration of its kind in Asia.

These novel technologies are excellent examples of the advances being offered to the world by Japan. We hope for your participation.

November 2004

Tomonori Aoyama