The “Optical Communications Systems and Networks” laboratory has been opened by the Athens Information Technology Center in Athens. The laboratory is a major investment of AIT as its value exceeds the 2.5?€. Its capabilities are making it one of the most advanced laboratories in Europe. The lab test bed can be used to evaluate the performance of telecommunications systems that support transmission distances up to 10,000km with a total capacity of up to 1.2Tbit/s (1200000Mbit/s or 20 million times higher than a simple dial-up connection). The laboratory facilities will assist AIT’s research associated with systems supporting advanced and demanding applications.

Professor Ioannis Tomkos, the head of the research group, commented: “It is deemed that very soon the vast majority of terrestrial and submarine backbone and metropolitan area networks will consist of advanced optical communications systems that will offer broadband services to the end users. In AIT’s lab research work of worldwide standard is performed aiming to optimise the performance and the capabilities of future optical networks.”

The A.I.T., which was founded and is being supported since 2001 by Intracom and INTRALOT, has active collaborations with a number of research institutes internationally and particularly with Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, USA. Apart from research, the laboratory facility will be used for educational purposes within the framework of the MSIN course that AIT provides in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon.

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