This was the first conference jointly organized by the IFIP Working Groups 6. 2, 6. 3, and 6. 4. Each of these three Working Groups has its own established series of conferences. Working Group 6. 2 sponsors the Broadband Communications series of conferences (Paris 1995, Montreal 1996, Lisboa 1997, Stuttgart 1998, and Hong-Kong 1999). Working Group 6. 3 sponsors the Performance of Communication Systems series of conferences (Paris 1981, Zurich 1984, Rio de Janeiro 1987, Barcelona 1990, Raleigh 1993, Istanbul 1995, and Lund 1998). Working Group 6. 4 sponsors the High Performance Networking series of conferences (Aaren 1987, Liege 1988, Berlin 1990, Liege 1992, Grenoble 1994, Palma 1995, New York 1997, Vienna 1998). It is expected that this new joint conference will take place every two years. In view of the three sponsoring Working Groups, there were three separate tracks, one per Working Group. Each track was handled by a different co chairman. Specifically, the track of Working Group 6. 2 was handled by Ulf Korner, the track of Working Group 6. 3 was handled by Ioanis Stavrakakis, and the track of Working Group 6. 4 was handled by Serge Fdida. The overall program committee chairman was Harry Perros, and the general conference chairman was Guy Pujolle. A total of 209 papers were submitted to the conference of which 82 were accepted. Each paper was submitted to one of the three tracks."

Networking Services QoS, Signaling, Processes Harry Perros The book has been structured around the Next Generation Network (NGN) framework, which separates the transport network, services, and signaling protocols into the service stratum and the transport stratum. The service stratum is the control plane for the establishment of networking sessions, and the transport stratum is the data plane over which the data of a networking service is transported. Within this context, the author explains in detail the signaling protocols used in the service stratum for setting up networking services, and the Quality of Service (QoS) architectures used in the transport network to guarantee QoS. Networking Services: Provides a systematic coverage of the signaling and QoS architectures for networking services. Explains topics such as SIP, IMS, MPLS, DiffServ, LDP, RSVP-TE, congestion control, RACF, and VPNs. Describes IMS-based architectures for popular networking services such as VoIP, presence, instant messaging, video conferencing, multimedia telephony, IPTV, and service and device continuity. Describes queueing theory and simulation techniques used to dimension the capacity of a networking service. Illustrates the material with problems and projects Networking Service is a textbook for graduate and senior undergraduate students in computer science and computer engineering, and also a reference book for networking engineers.