We are witnessing an ever-increasing thrust toward the era of multimedia information networks, largely spurred by the U.S. Government's proposal for the National Information Infrastructure in the fall of 1993. While more people are subscribing to the services of narrowband ISDN, the implementation of broadband ISDN by means of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has accelerated since the formation of the ATM Forum in 1993. In the meantime, frame relay may prevail for inter-LAN connections. In the "upper layer" of the network, commercial use of Internet is rapidly emerging. To ensure the successful development of technology, it is vital to use a judicious approach in assessing the architecture and performance of the systems that implement the technology. It is this spirit that underlies the present conference, which is intended to provide an international forum for the presentation of recent research results in the area of local and metropolitan communication systems. This conference has two sets of predecessors. It is the third in a series of international conferences on Local and Metropolitan Communication Systems -LAN & MAN; the first was held in Toulouse in 1986 and the second in Palma de Mallorca in 1991. It is also the fourth in a triennial series organized by Kyoto University and others on the performance of communication-related systems; the previous ones were held in Tokyo (1985) and Kyoto (1988, 1991).

With the proliferation of ISDN and mobile communication systems, modern commu nication networks are becoming larger-scale, higher-speed, and more complex than ever before. Therefore, besides hardware development, extensive research on system technolo gies with respect to the performance evaluation and management is indispensable for the proper design, development and operation of future complex communication networks. The International Conference on the Performance and Management of Complex Com munication Systems (PMCCN '97) was held from November 17 to 21, 1997, at Tsukuba Science City, Japan. This was the fifth international conference on the performance as pects of communication networks held every three years in Japan (1985 in Tokyo; 1988, 1991, and 1994 in Kyoto). The conference was sponsored by the International Federa tion of Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group (WG) 6.3 Performance of Com munication Systems, and 7.3 Computer System Modelling, University of Tsukuba, Kyoto University, and The Telecommunication Advancement Foundation (TAF)."

We are witnessing an ever-increasing thrust toward the era of multimedia information networks, largely spurred by the U.S. Government's proposal for the National Information Infrastructure in the fall of 1993. While more people are subscribing to the services of narrowband ISDN, the implementation of broadband ISDN by means of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has accelerated since the formation of the ATM Forum in 1993. In the meantime, frame relay may prevail for inter-LAN connections. In the "upper layer" of the network, commercial use of Internet is rapidly emerging. To ensure the successful development of technology, it is vital to use a judicious approach in assessing the architecture and performance of the systems that implement the technology. It is this spirit that underlies the present conference, which is intended to provide an international forum for the presentation of recent research results in the area of local and metropolitan communication systems. This conference has two sets of predecessors. It is the third in a series of international conferences on Local and Metropolitan Communication Systems -LAN & MAN; the first was held in Toulouse in 1986 and the second in Palma de Mallorca in 1991. It is also the fourth in a triennial series organized by Kyoto University and others on the performance of communication-related systems; the previous ones were held in Tokyo (1985) and Kyoto (1988, 1991).

With the proliferation of ISDN and mobile communication systems, modern commu nication networks are becoming larger-scale, higher-speed, and more complex than ever before. Therefore, besides hardware development, extensive research on system technolo gies with respect to the performance evaluation and management is indispensable for the proper design, development and operation of future complex communication networks. The International Conference on the Performance and Management of Complex Com munication Systems (PMCCN '97) was held from November 17 to 21, 1997, at Tsukuba Science City, Japan. This was the fifth international conference on the performance as pects of communication networks held every three years in Japan (1985 in Tokyo; 1988, 1991, and 1994 in Kyoto). The conference was sponsored by the International Federa tion of Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group (WG) 6.3 Performance of Com munication Systems, and 7.3 Computer System Modelling, University of Tsukuba, Kyoto University, and The Telecommunication Advancement Foundation (TAF).