We are approaching an era in which people will need 1-Gbit/s communications ports in their offices, their homes, and even on the road. These high-speed communications ports will enable telecommuting, telemedicine, teleeducation, and a variety of multimedia applications for entertainment and computing. These demands for high-speed communications will require new telecommunications and data communications infrastructure with terabit/s data rates. Additionally, these communications networks will require very high-speed computers (Tflops), very high-speed instrumentation (THz), and large information storage (Tbytes). The technologies needed to reach these rates are being worked on at many R&D organizations around the world. In fact, many demonstrations have been completed in 1996-1997 showing 1-Tbit/s communications links over more than 100 kilometers, 1-Tflops computers, and 1-THz instrumentation. Thus, we can safely say that the Tera Era is on the horizon.

This special issue of the HP Journal contains papers on technologies needed for high-speed communications. The papers address the long-haul, access, and local area networks using fiber-optic, copper wire, and wireless communications links. This series of articles is split into two parts: part 1 (this month) will address the area of communications technologies for fiber-optic and copper wire links.

Waguih Ishak
Director
Communications and Optics
Research Laboratory
HP Laboratories