About TNL

TNL

The Telecommunications and Networks Lab of ICS-FORTH is actively involved and has interests in the areas of high performance and wireless networking and mobile communications. In particular, our research and development activities involve resource control and traffic engineering in wired and wireless networks, performance evaluation of networks with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), traffic measurement and analysis, voice processing, synthesis and compression, mobile positioning, and contact-less smartcards. The Lab also maintains a number of testbeds involving fixed and wireless (based on IEEE 802.11) technologies for experimenting with new network technologies and protocols, and for performing measurement and analysis experiments of real network traffic.

The Lab has ongoing and close collaborations with both national and international industries, including network manufacturers and telecommunication service providers, as well as with other research groups having interests in the above areas. Funding of our research has and is provided by the European Commission, through ACTS (CASHMAN, MISA, REFORM, MONTAGE, ITHACI) and IST (M3I, SCAMPI) projects, by national program funds (General Secretariat for Research and Technology - GSRT), and by industrial funded projects.

 

The work outlined above can be broken into the following activities:

Telecommunications

Telecommunications Activity

The central themes of this activity cover the broad area of wireless communications and communications security. In wireless communications our interest focus on mobile communications, W-LAN technology and ad hoc networks. The areas of interest include, but are not limited to broadband communications, wireless and mobile positioning, wireless network services and capabilities such as packet switching and multimedia networking for mobile users.

Our interest on communications security covers cryptographic techniques and protocols, security services and applications, networks security management and evaluation of wireless networks characteristics. Emphasis is given on mobile and ad hoc networks security, smart card applications and elliptic curve cryptosystems.

Laboratory Head: Apostolos Traganitis
Tel: +30 2810 391653

Mobile Computing

Mobile Computing

The Mobile Computing Activity in the FORTH-ICS conducts research in the areas of networks, telecommunications, and distributed systems. More specifically, it actively works in the areas of network monitoring, analysis and modeling, quality of experience (QoE) modeling for various network services (e.g., VoIP, video streaming), analysis of large-scale telecommunication markets, crowd-sensing and crowd-sourcing systems, positioning systems, mobile peer-to-peer (mp2p) systems, and data analytics in telecom markets, under the supervision of Prof. Maria Papadopouli.

For more information please visit here.

Internet Measurements and Network Security

Internet Measurement and Network Security Activity

The Internet Measurement and Network Security activity focuses on exploiting network measurements to understand and answer fundamental questions about the Internet. Some of the questions we are currently working on are the following:

  • To what extent is the IPv4 address space utilized?
  • How effective is Internet scanning at recruiting new botnet members?
  • What are the characteristics of the Background Radiation of the Internet (a persistent noisy component of Internet traffic that results from scanning and misconfigurations) in production networks and how it has evolved over time?
  • How geopolitical factors have shaped the expansion of the Internet within different countries and at a global level?

We collaborate with several other research groups such as the groups of Dr. Claffy in the Collaborative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) of the University of California San Diego (UCSD), Prof. Plattner in ETH Zurich, and Prof. Weidmann in the Political Sciences Department of the University of Konstanz.

Activity Leaders: Prof. Xenofontas Dimitropoulos

Group Page: www.inspire.edu.gr

Software Defined Networks

Software Defined Networks Activity

The Software Defined Networks (SDN) activity focuses on a new, rapidly emerging paradigm for designing networks, which is based on the principles of the separation of the control from the data plane and of the logical centralization of the control plane. This approach promises to make computer networks more programmable than today and finds applications in the entire spectrum of networks, including data-center, enterprise, wide-area, cellular, and wireless networks.

Our research focuses primarily on SDN applications in the inter-domain level. In particular, we aim at exploiting SDN principles for improving the availability of the Internet, detecting and mitigating advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, providing Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees, and improving the convergence time of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). 

Our research is supported from a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant with total funding 1,41 million euros.

Projects:

Activity Leader: Prof. Xenofontas Dimitropoulos 

Group Page: www.inspire.edu.gr

Broadband and Wireless Networking

Broadband and Wireless Networking Activity

This activity deals with the performance evaluation of wired and wireless communication networks through modelling, analysis and simulation, and the development and evaluation of efficient resource management and traffic control mechanisms. Specific issues involve end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) and service differentiation support over heterogeneous network technologies, charging of network transport services, traffic measurement and analysis, QoS and SLA (Service Level Agreement) monitoring, and seamless congestion control over wired and wireless networks.

In the area of congestion control for wired and wireless networks, we are investigating the application of economic modelling and congestion pricing for developing flexible, efficient, and robust mechanisms for resource control. The overall approach considers the use of a simple mechanism inside the network, such as Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), for conveying congestion information to the end-systems, which respond independently based on their own requirements and needs. An important contribution we have made in this area is the extension of the above approach for wireless networks, including both 3rd generation networks based on Wideband CDMA and Wireless LANs based IEEE 802.11. This work takes into account the particular characteristics of wireless technology, and developes a framework for seamless congestion control over wired and wireless network, which takes into account the cost of battery power consumption. Our other interests in the area of wireless networking and mobile computing includes mechanisms for supporting service differentiation, media access control algorithms, performance and modifications of TCP over heterogeneous networks, and multihop wireless networks.

Past projects (partial list)

Telecommunications Activity

The central themes of this activity cover the broad area of wireless communications and communications security. In wireless communications our interest focus on mobile communications, W-LAN technology and ad hoc networks. The areas of interest include, but are not limited to broadband communications, wireless and mobile positioning, wireless network services and capabilities such as packet switching and multimedia networking for mobile users.

Our interest on communications security covers cryptographic techniques and protocols, security services and applications, networks security management and evaluation of wireless networks characteristics. Emphasis is given on mobile and ad hoc networks security, smart card applications and elliptic curve cryptosystems.

Laboratory Head: Apostolos Traganitis
Tel: +30 2810 391653

Mobile Computing

The Mobile Computing Activity in the FORTH-ICS conducts research in the areas of networks, telecommunications, and distributed systems. More specifically, it actively works in the areas of network monitoring, analysis and modeling, quality of experience (QoE) modeling for various network services (e.g., VoIP, video streaming), analysis of large-scale telecommunication markets, crowd-sensing and crowd-sourcing systems, positioning systems, mobile peer-to-peer (mp2p) systems, and data analytics in telecom markets, under the supervision of Prof. Maria Papadopouli.

For more information please visit here.

Internet Measurement and Network Security Activity

The Internet Measurement and Network Security activity focuses on exploiting network measurements to understand and answer fundamental questions about the Internet. Some of the questions we are currently working on are the following:

  • To what extent is the IPv4 address space utilized?
  • How effective is Internet scanning at recruiting new botnet members?
  • What are the characteristics of the Background Radiation of the Internet (a persistent noisy component of Internet traffic that results from scanning and misconfigurations) in production networks and how it has evolved over time?
  • How geopolitical factors have shaped the expansion of the Internet within different countries and at a global level?

We collaborate with several other research groups such as the groups of Dr. Claffy in the Collaborative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) of the University of California San Diego (UCSD), Prof. Plattner in ETH Zurich, and Prof. Weidmann in the Political Sciences Department of the University of Konstanz.

Activity Leaders: Prof. Xenofontas Dimitropoulos

Group Page: www.inspire.edu.gr

Software Defined Networks Activity

The Software Defined Networks (SDN) activity focuses on a new, rapidly emerging paradigm for designing networks, which is based on the principles of the separation of the control from the data plane and of the logical centralization of the control plane. This approach promises to make computer networks more programmable than today and finds applications in the entire spectrum of networks, including data-center, enterprise, wide-area, cellular, and wireless networks.

Our research focuses primarily on SDN applications in the inter-domain level. In particular, we aim at exploiting SDN principles for improving the availability of the Internet, detecting and mitigating advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, providing Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees, and improving the convergence time of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). 

Our research is supported from a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant with total funding 1,41 million euros.

Projects:

Activity Leader: Prof. Xenofontas Dimitropoulos 

Group Page: www.inspire.edu.gr

Broadband and Wireless Networking Activity

This activity deals with the performance evaluation of wired and wireless communication networks through modelling, analysis and simulation, and the development and evaluation of efficient resource management and traffic control mechanisms. Specific issues involve end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) and service differentiation support over heterogeneous network technologies, charging of network transport services, traffic measurement and analysis, QoS and SLA (Service Level Agreement) monitoring, and seamless congestion control over wired and wireless networks.

In the area of congestion control for wired and wireless networks, we are investigating the application of economic modelling and congestion pricing for developing flexible, efficient, and robust mechanisms for resource control. The overall approach considers the use of a simple mechanism inside the network, such as Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), for conveying congestion information to the end-systems, which respond independently based on their own requirements and needs. An important contribution we have made in this area is the extension of the above approach for wireless networks, including both 3rd generation networks based on Wideband CDMA and Wireless LANs based IEEE 802.11. This work takes into account the particular characteristics of wireless technology, and developes a framework for seamless congestion control over wired and wireless network, which takes into account the cost of battery power consumption. Our other interests in the area of wireless networking and mobile computing includes mechanisms for supporting service differentiation, media access control algorithms, performance and modifications of TCP over heterogeneous networks, and multihop wireless networks.

Ongoing research projects include the following:

Past projects (partial list)

Coordinator:Vasilios A. Siris,
Tel: +30 2810 391726