The Telecommunication Network and Services Area deals with issues related with the design, control and management of wired or hybrid wired-wireless communication networks and with the support to the services that can be provisioned in such networks.
The current main research areas are flexible optical networks, Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), energy efficiency in wired and wireless networks, intra-data center inter-data center communications, transport network support for 5G/6G systems, network acceleration and edge computing, zero-touch optical networks, network disaggregation, industrial network protocols.

The activities are carried out by means of design tools, simulation tools, analytical modeling and experimental tested.  The Network and Services Area manages the Advanced Research on Networking (ARNO) testbed that features access, metro, and core networks interconnecting emulated data centers. The Telecommunication Network and Services Area counts numerous participations to international research projects and academic and industrial collaborations.
The area has also gained a solid reputation with both industrial partners and as in internationally recognized research group. In fact, the group has received research grants from leading companies like Ericsson, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, Trenitalia, Schindler group, Telecom Italia and many others. In addition, the group has been a partner, for more than twenty years, in the major EU-sponsored projects on optical networking during FP6, FP7, and H2020. Several acquired national and regional projects complete the funding landscape.

Key Recent Projects

• Concluded: H2020 5G-Exchange, H2020 5G-Transformer, 4-year project sponsored by Telecom Italia
• On-going: H2020 5G-Growth, H2020 BRAINE, H2020-OPTIMA, Regional Project 5G-SOSIA, Regional Project DECODE-EE