Welcome to ECOC 2016 in Düsseldorf! Following Munich in 2000 and Berlin in 2007, Düsseldorf, Germany will be the next European capital of optical communications, hosting the 42nd edition of the European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communications held September 18th to 22nd; 2016. This well-established conference will provide another milestone in recent scientific and technical progress on materials, devices, and systems for applications in photonic networks, the basic technology for today’s and the future world-wide Internet. With attendances and delegates from all over the world, ECOC provides a unique opportunity to stay connected to the latest innovations in the field as well as for networking and interaction that nobody of you should miss.
ECOC 2016 will start on Sunday, September 18th with six workshops – for warming-up – focusing on hot topics such as elastic optical networking, digital signal processing, architectures for 5G front- and backhaul, nonlinear mitigation techniques, waveguide based devices and ultra-broadband Silicon technology.
The plenary session, open to exhibitors as well, will feature speakers from academia and industry who will share their viewpoints on very relevant topics of present interest and visions on future trends and perspectives. Inspiring talks will be given by Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, Director of Technology Telekom Deutschland GmbH and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Deutsche Telekom AG, Jeffrey Gao, President of the Transmission Network Product Line, Huawei Technologies, Erich Auer, Head of System Engineering, Tesat-Spacecom GmbH & Co.KG and Peter Winzer, Director of Optical Subsystems Research, Bell Labs Nokia.
From student to expert level, from academia to industry, ECOC’s special tutorials, invited and contributed papers will analyse the impact and role of photonic technologies in present and future core, metro and converged access networks addressing the major trends and innovations beyond state of the art. From more than 600 submitted papers, the Technical Programme Committee, composed by world renowned experts and chaired by distinguished scientists, constructed an amazing programme for you addressing continuously ongoing hot topics such as spatial division multiplexing (SDM), data-centre communications, advanced modulation formats, digital signal processing (DSP), super-channel transport and routing, network function virtualization (NFV) as well as rising star topics such as advanced Silicon and InP integrated optics, radio over fibre technologies for emerging 5G mobile communication or visible light communication (VLC). Because of the high interest, free-space optical communication for space and satellite applications was selected as a special topic for this year’s ECOC. New developments and trends on emerging and highly forward-looking research in photonics will be addressed in a complementary CLEO (Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics) focus meeting. The post-deadline session on Thursday afternoon will give attendees the opportunity to hear new and significant research in rapidly advancing areas at the earliest possible stage.
The conference will be accompanied by an exhibition of leading-edge companies in the photonic system, sub-system and component space. The exhibition is expected to attract more than 300 exhibitors from all over the world. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet them!
Please also do not miss the social events, we have especially organised for you: the Get Together, the Welcome Reception and the Conference Dinner for which we selected the Classic Remise, one of the most attractive locations in and around Düsseldorf for a memorable event.
To a very large extent, the success of ECOC 2016 will depend on your active participation.
We are looking forward to seeing you in Düsseldorf!
General Chairs
Matthias Berger, Nokia, Nuremberg
Ronald Freund, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin