Mankind witnesses today the spectacular growing of mobile communications all around the world and the interest in it dramatically increases with each day. New telecommunication services and telematic applications are the strong drive of this progress, and they pose new requirements to network design and construction issues. To implement those new services within a new-generation mobile network, a set of novel network architectures, protocols and traffic-related mechanisms have to be invented. It is anticipated that the most important, value-added and revenue-expected new services for the mobile network will be Internet access and Internet Protocol (IP) multimedia applications.

The main objective of the Action is to develop techniques for the analysis, design and control of advanced multiservice networks supporting mobility, multimedia and interworking, by means of the development and application of new and better analytical techniques for the mathematical understanding and optimisation of the behaviour of communications equipment, protocols, and network topologies and architectures, and of economic aspects such as pricing principles and network cost estimation.

The work carried out within various projects including COST237 has demonstrated the importance of multimedia group communication for enabling high-performance networking and new emerging applications. One can mention multiparty conferencing, Internet telephony, collaborative work or distributed interactive simulation. They are characterized by interactivity, real-time constraints, and various number of participants.

The purpose of the COST-257 Action is to improve the design of broadband multiservice switching systems and network architecture by determining optimal traffic control and resource allocation procedures and by evaluating alternative solutions.