TKK | Tietoverkkolaboratorio | Julkaisut

Annual Report 1998: Preface | Introduction | Personnel | Research projects | Teaching | Activities | Participation in boards and committees | Publications

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 General

Due to the growth, there were times during the past year when we were short of office space. At the time of writing this problem has been solved. The gradual remodelling of our office space has continued and in 1998 we completed the renovation of the infrastructure in our teaching laboratory.

Old laboratory hall which was based on a normal office room was modified to a modern research and education environment. The laboratory has now an independent air conditioning and power supply which brings the operation and the reliability of education equipment to a very high level. Also actual student exercises were modified extensively to contain modern telecom networking concepts from the PSTN related SS7 to the ATM and Internet. Substantial investments related to these topics were made.

1.2 Research

The research has been growing in three main directions: ATM networks and their traffic theory, signal processing for mobile communications, and Internet-based switching and speech transmission. Research contacts have been active both with Finnish and foreign colleagues. Three visiting professors and six visiting researcher scientists spent several months with us in co-operative projects.

1.3 Teaching

During the year a lot of effort was put on reshaping the option courses provided by the Laboratory. Kirsi Voipio and Seppo Uusitupa completed the main body of work on their book "Tietoliikenneaapinen" the pre-prints of which were used in the course "Introduction to Telecommunications". Two new courses were produced: "Simulation of telecommunications networks" and "Introduction to teletraffic theory". The latter course is being proposed for inclusion in the telecommunications option studies at the Department of Electrical and Communications Engineering (ECE).

Eight of our staff of lecturers and teaching assistants were rewarded for the quality of teaching during 1997 based on the Quality system at the Department.

1.4 Departmental Activities

We participated vigorously in the efforts to renew the structure of Basic and Option studies at the ECE department. From the telecommunications technology point of view the key problem is that necessary methodological courses on event-based systems are not available to students of ECE, majoring in telecommunications. To solve the problem we provided input and participated in a working group on the study structure arguing for more flexibility (http://www.netlab.tkk.fi/u/kantola).

We participated in the preparation of the new Master's Programme in Telecommunications (http://www.netlab.tkk.fi/masters) which will start in the fall 1999. The programme is the first degree programme at Helsinki University of Technology for English speaking foreign students with the clear objective of increasing the number of DI (MSc) degrees awarded to foreign students. In the beginning the programme will provide majors in Telecommunications Software and in Radio Communications.

1.5 Key facts 1998

Annual Report 1998: Preface | Introduction | Personnel | Research projects | Teaching | Activities | Participation in boards and committees | Publications

Networking laboratory is now part of Department of Communications and Networking. Content on this page may be obsolete.