30th Anniversary Memories

This page presents testimonies and memories of the EuCNC conference series (see the list in here), which is celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year.

“I had the privilege to join the Mobile and Wireless communication research programme of the European Commission in 1994, under the leadership and vision of João da Silva. In those “RACE” days, passionate discussions revolved around the comparative merits of CDMA versus TDMA, reflecting the already looming future regional battles that mobile communications would later exacerbate. Since these pioneering days, mobile communications systems have incorporated a flurry of radio, network, content, positioning, service or software technologies, making them fit for virtually every wireless connectivity use case scenario. They have evolved towards platform for innovation, where usage is only limited by users’ imagination, as first exemplified by 4G: at the time when it was standardised, no one had expected the myriads of “apps” it would later make possible. 5G will no doubt intensify this trend. During the last 30 years, this conference has accompanied all these (r)evolutions and many times announced them through visionary research. I am really proud of having had the opportunity of attending so many editions in my capacity of Steering Committee vice chair, under the leadership of Luis Correia, and of meeting so many bright European researchers and scientist being part of a world class R&I ecosystem. More than ever, Europe needs them. As a final word, I would like to pay my tribute to my former colleague Bartolome Arroyo, who has been one of the brains behind the organisation of so many of these conferences, and who sadly left us a couple of years ago.”

“Europe had the foresight to create the first Digital Mobile Standard, GSM. Then, as GSM was just launched, again had the foresight to establish collaborative research into what was originally called, FPLMTS, with the European twist UMTS, and later just simply 3G. Without these research programmes, like RACE and FRAMES, Europe would not be where it is today with two of the worlds leading Telecommunications Equipment vendors, and with 3GPP being established as the only world standard. This conference series has been an important contributor in this process.”

Fifth Tee Pty Ltd, Australia
(formerly with Ericsson, Sweden)

“In 1992, I joined the RACE Program as a Project Manager of the ATDMA Radio Project. During that year I was honoured to be elected Chair of the Mobile and Personal Communications Domain that gave me the insights, the eye-catcher, to tremendous amount of research knowledge and ability in European Academia and Industry involved in collaborative projects. This encouraged me to find acceptance of the results in FAMOUS, FPLMTS, ITU IMT2000 and others standards bodies despite a number of very difficult challenges and drawbacks at the beginning including from our own European Industry. With the start of the ACTS program there were still a diversity of competing standards, technologies and Air Interfaces. This is where I initialized FRAMES towards achieving a revolutionary Radio path and hence, the long expected Mobile Internet. Nevertheless, it did bring us closer to the IETF and adaption of an IP architecture and protocols. Furthermore, this gave the researches a break through to what in RACE II converted FPLMTS to UMTS/3G and an evolutionary path towards 4G. This was the birth of Mobile Apps. Think back the first-Generation Mobile systems took a cycle of 10 years to achieve a standard with many obstacles, it is remarkable that Mobile technologies today address both Horizontal and Vertical businesses with converged Technologies and Standards and are on the path of researching 6G which makes me feel very proud to have contributed to the process and also to part of the Events/Conference Team or as Steering committee member over a very long period of time. However, I would especially like to pay my tribute to Bob Swain, and most of all to Joao Da Silva and Team who were always there when we needed them and all brilliant European researchers and scientist for their support and collaboration. Academia who contributed to dissemination of all the results and achievements in Conference Series/Events and continue to do so via EuCNC under the leadership of Luis Correia.”

“I feel good to see how generations of mobile network standards have been prepared by research projects funded by the sequence of European Framework Programs since 1991. And I‘m happy to have been part of this exciting process of knowledge generation. As a partner to EU-projects MBS, SAMBA and WINNER I/II (and WINNER III) my team had, regularly, attended Mobile Summit conferences and published its research results, there. We have benefitted much from the exchange of new ideas and concepts presented there for our own work. Thank you so much to all the organizers of this conference series for providing such a solid platform for scientific exchange!
Vivat, crescat, floreat to the EuCNC conference series!”

Bernhard Walke

Prof., Retired,
(formely with RWTH Aachen University, Germany)

“The EuCNC is the name of a long series of Telecommunications events hosted by the EC from 1992 to today. They have marked the evolution of communications and the participation of EU industry and academia moving from RACE and GSM to 6G programmes. To me, the EU conference was a highlight that repeated every year. When everybody had to present the results of the project, prepare a contribution, sometimes in a hurry. It was the time to urge all members of the consortium to complete their part, correcting the proofs and, most dreaded, preparing a demonstration that may not be fully ready. When everything was complete, it was time to breathe, relax and look at what others had done; time to learn, to meet other colleagues, to discuss improvements. That justified all the effort… until the following year.”

Javier Rodriguez Fonollosa

Prof., Univ. Polytech. Catalonia
10^th IST Mobile Communications Summit, 2001, TPC Chair

“EuCNC was born in 1992 as “RACE Mobile Workshop” as part of the RACE II European Research Program. It developed during the different EU Research Programs from RACE to ACTS, IST, Framework Program 6 and 7, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe to EuCNC today. This series of annual conferences is the showcase of European collaborative research in the ICT domain and its success stories. The conference is travelling across EU Member States. It offers a great combination of keynotes, panels, scientific contributions, tutorials, exhibitions and social events. International partners are participating and contributing to international cooperation to prepare globally accepted standards in the ICT domain. Therefore, these events are a great place for networking and contribute significantly to build a European and global research community. During these last 30 years the GSM systems was globally deployed and systems such as UMTS, LTE and 5G were developed, standardised and deployed globally. European research programs contributed significantly to this development, which was discussed in this conference series. I would like to wish EuCNC also in future very much success for the further development of mobile and wireless communication. The next step towards the Horizon Europe Research Program is now starting and offers new opportunities.”

“Happy anniversary EUCNC! What a journey in time! Born as Mobile Summit 30 years ago it is still the place where Europe and the world are discussing the newest ideas, results and visions on mobile communications. As a PhD student in 1998 I was fascinated by the community spirit of this conference. It displayed the importance of the – at that time – 5th European Framework Programme and motivated the best young European talents to work in legendary projects like WINNER, E2R, DRIVE, …you name it! Research leaders like Joao Da Silva, Werner Mohr, Luis Correia, Bernhard Walke, Hamid Agvami, Gerhard Fettweis or Ramjee Prasad were real role models for us youngsters. Later as project officer I had the honour to oversee the organisation of the editions in Mykonos, Budapest, Stockholm and Santander, a real pleasure to create the programme in a time where we shaped the 4G standard that we all have on our phones today.Around 15 years later we start to explore first ideas for 6G and I am happy that we recently joined forces of EUCNC with the 6G Summit, a series that started 3 years ago in Levi. The world knows that the most advanced ideas are discussed in Europe and the place to be is this conference.
I am looking forward to this year’s edition under the Portuguese EU Presidency!”

“This is Version 2 of this Testimony; after having written V1 I learned that it is more than twice of the specified limit and also it contains topics being available elsewhere. So I decided to throw away V1 and write only about personal points: friendships, impressions. Meeting several times – even in scientific topics – can lead to real friendship, as in our case. I mention first Dr. Steve and Mrs. Judy Weinstein. I met Steve at several IEEE conferences along the decades, we cooperated in ComSoc bodies – it was self-evident for me to ask him as Keynote Speaker and was happy to meet them in Budapest. With Prof. Witold and Mrs. Barbara Krzymien (always accompanying Witold) we met at many points of the globe from Dresden to San Francisco, from Seoul to Sidney etc. I asked Witold to organize a North-American special session. I was happy having got Witold’s acceptance and having them here. I respected Dr. Joao da Silva very much, but our acquaintance was/is rather superficial; so I dare not to call myself his friend. We met the first time at Summit #15 in Mikonos. I remember the VIP Dinner there. My wife Kati and I were seated next to the couple da Silva – I remember a very good conversation that time. I also remember: in the period between the two Summits we had 2-3 fine discussions with Dr. da Silva in Brussels – and quite a few here during our Summit; this time Madame da Silva didn’t accompany him.”

“Serving as executive vice chair of the 16th edition of the conference series one of the biggest challenge was to provide necessary bandwidth for the more than 700 participants enable to check their e-mail at wired and wireless access points keeping in mind that one of our panel was entitled as “Future Internet will be Mobile”. Now, the Internet is mobile mostly thanks to the enthused young (remember each of us was young at least one time during this 30 years, and many of us are still) researchers working together in severe excellent research projects presented in this conference series and e-mail checking is not a problem anymore.”

János Bitó

Prof., Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
2007 IST Mobile Summit Executive Vice Chair

“The IST Mobile Summits have become a paradigmatic show case of the successful European collaboration in the Information and Communication Technologies domain. During the last 30 years such events have provided a singular meeting point for worldwide researchers, innovators and developers discussing their visions, experiences and dreams. I was honoured to host the 2009 ICT Mobile Summit in Santander (Spain), which took place in the emblematic and beautiful site of Magdalena Palace. Besides the 5 featured plenary sessions, more than 20 project demonstration boots or 29 regular sessions, I am convinced that the 2009 Conference became a corner stone in the Internet of Things European strategy. Many projects which were developed during the following decade were inspired upon the enriching discussions of the four-days 2009 Mobile Summit. My best wishes for many more future successful Summits!”

“Happy anniversary EUCNC! What a journey in time! Born as Mobile Summit 30 years ago it is still the place where Europe and the world are discussing the newest ideas, results and visions on mobile communications. It is incredible that EuCNC is already 30 years old! This conference has established itself as a major event for the research communities involved in network technologies, from GSM to 5G, and every year it is an opportunity to not only find out about results and demonstrations, about new policy developments, but it is also a place where to meet friends and to build a network of expertise and support for the benefit of EU Research. Having helped for a few years in the organisation of this conference, I can only underline how proud we all are to reach this milestone, and I would like to thank all those who made it possible, and in particular Professor Luis Correia. Long live EUCnC, long live our European journey towards network technologies of the future!”

“EuCNC is literally the cornerstone European conference on network technologies and connectivity systems with a large international dimension. Since its inception in the beginning 90’s, the conference has been organised as the key showcasing and dissemination event of telecom research and it has been contributing to a strong global reputation of excellence of EU research in the field. It has successfully bridged academia / research centres, SMEs and industry and has provided a key stakeholder forum for the definition of future telecommunications research and deployment roadmap, as well as for important discussions, be it on research, business, policy or regulatory side. The exhibition area with various demonstrations has been also something unique and one of the strongest points of the conference. Since my first participation in the conference, in the IST Mobile Communications Summit 2001 in Barcelona, as a Researcher, the Event has tremendously evolved to a “must-visit” Event for the networking community, with extremely high quality standards and constantly increasing participation. I feel honoured and proud that I was a member of the EC organizing team and Steering Committee from 2013 to 2019, having actively contributed to its success and international impact, especially towards 5G research, policy and deployment aspects. I am confident that EuCNC will continue its raving success and I am looking forward to the next editions in the context of the Horizon Europe programme and the new wave of 6G technologies.”

“A conference and a yearly milestone that has been instrumental in the shaping of wireless communications. A unique event characterized by the combination of scientific excellence, unique demonstrations, inspiring keynotes, panels and workshops. I had the honour of hosting and being a chair in the EuCNC 2016 edition, which had the theme “dawn of 5G”. I am proud to have been part of the teams that won best demonstration booth awards in 2017, 2018 and in 2019. My participations, contributions and awards in the conference constitute highlights of my career. Above all it has been an honour to be given the chance to interact with the community at the professional and socializing layers. Looking forward to next editions, to the shaping of 6G and of the generations to come.”

Panagiotis Demestichas

Prof., University of Piraeus, Greece
EuCNC 2016 TPC Chair

Pearse O’Donohue

Director Future Networks Directorate, European Commission

“EUCNC and its predecessors has an excellent and continuous track record in enabling Europe to be at the forefront for research and innovation for mobile communications. It fosters the exchange between researchers, industry representatives and policy makers and highlights to the world of what is and what could be possible. I am happy that COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) has and still is a great contributor supporting the mobile communication research community by building strong and lasting networks, which helped to shape this conference.”

Ralph Stübner

Science Officer, COST Association

Matti Latva-aho

Prof., University of Oulu, Finland

EuCNC 2016 TP7 Chair

“Oulu – The Home of Radio, as it reads on the wall of Nokia’s Factory of the Future – was proud to host EuCNC 2017. The event, which attracted 640 participants from 32 countries, ran smoothly as we enjoyed sunny days, good company and a very interesting programme making the event a great success. However, the event started with a major challenge in the middle of a Finnish Government crisis. We didn’t know whether the Opening Keynote by the Minister of Transport and Communications would take place or not. Luckily, the Government sorted everything out in the morning just before the programme started. We also received great visibility through a story in PCMag which was written during EuCNC 2017 and discusses Oulu’s success story “How a Small City in Finland Turned Into a 5G Pioneer” (https://uk.pcmag.com/startups/90304/how-a-small-city-in-finland-turned-into-a-5g-pioneer). Right after the event we started preparing a proposal for the National Flagship competition. 6G Flagship was finally launched in May 2018 which brought us back again organizing this year’s unique event, now spiced up with 6G Summit, the first global event series on 6G.”

Mario Scillia

Project Officer Unit Future Connectivity Systems, European Commission

Vlatko Lipovac

Prof., University of Dubrovnik, Croatia
EuCNC 2020 TPC Co-Chair

Filipe Cardoso

Prof., Polytech. Institute Setubal, Portugal
EuCNC 2020 TPC Co-Chair