In the future, a network of networks will support a wide variety of nomadic and mobile interoperable devices, innovative services, ICT tools and applications, content formats and delivery modes. A new generation of telecom infrastructure, network and internet technologies will be used in the coming years as fundamental building blocks, supporting health, environment, government, transport, entertainment and education to name just a few examples. The Future network will provide underlying support for the Future Internet, enabling new business models and a multiplicity of devices, networks, and service providers.
Research in network technologies is essential and requires very significant investments for enabling our future networked society, in an evolving world where user's expectations are continuously growing, overloading the existing infrastructure with new applications and services that the network was not initially designed for. While the technology itself develops faster and faster, the deployment and implementation of a new network infrastructure technology can take up to 10 years. (Source: Cordis)
Future Networks is addressed in the ICT work programme 2011/12 (p.12) under the following challenges/objectives:
> Challenge 1:Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures
