IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Transmission, Access and Optical Systems (TAOS)

Officers  (2008-2009)

Chair: Stefano Bregni (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

Vice Chair: Tarek El-Bawab (Jackson State University, USA)

Secretary: vacant

TAOS Hall of Fame: past officers (since 1976)

Charter and Scope

The Transmission, Access, and Optical Systems (TAOS) technical committee plays an active role in promoting and organizing leading-edge Journal special issues, conference symposia, tutorials and workshops, as well as in IEEE standard development, related in particular to optical and metallic guided media and wireless access systems, for the transport of voice and data of any bandwidth. Moreover, it facilitates discussion and exchange of technical information among members of the committee.

Its scope is centered on transmission systems and networks, for the transport of all kind of information in particular in the access segment of telecommunications networks. More specifically, typical areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• transmission systems and equipment for subscriber access over optical fiber, coaxial cable and twisted copper pairs;
• architecture, performance and testing of wired and wireless access systems and networks;
• analog and digital transmission systems for telephone and data networks;
• inductive coordination and electrical protection of wired media;
  
• wireless local loop;
• SDH/SONET transmission systems;
• network synchronization;
• technologies, architectures and protocols for optical transmission systems;
  
• medium access control protocols for both optical and metallic media.

In order to further the above interests, the Committee cooperates with other IEEE Communications Society Technical Committees (TCs) as well as with other organizations. 

Policies and Procedures

TAOS adheres to all policies specified by the IEEE Communication Society for Technical Committees (IEEE Communications Society Policies and Procedures, Sec. 7.0 - Operating Procedures Template). The TAOS Chair reports directly to the VP-Technical Activities.

TAOS Policies and Procedures are detailed in the document "Transmission, Access and Optical Systems (TAOS) Policies and Procedures", available on the TAOS web site.

Election of Officers

According to ComSoc policies, officers (chair, vice-chair and secretary) are elected for two-years terms, in TAOS meetings usually held at all ICC and GLOBECOM conferences. Candidates are chosen among Communications Society members with a recognized active role within TAOS areas of interest. In most cases, upon expiration of the two-years term, the vice-chair steps up to the chair position, the secretary steps up to vice-chair and a new secretary is elected.

The TAOS Steering Committee includes the current officers (chair, vice-chair and secretary) and past chairs who are still active members. Other ComSoc members with outstanding record in supporting TAOS activities may be also included. The Steering Committee may serve also as candidate selection committee, recommending a slate of officers for the next two-year term. Currently, the TAOS Steering Committee includes:

• Stefano Bregni, Vice-Chair (Politecnico di Milano, Italy),
• Jaafar Elmirghani (University of Wales Swansea, UK),
• Steve Gorshe (PMC-Sierra Inc, USA),
• Mohsen Guizani, (Western Michigan University, USA),
• Mounir Hamdi (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong),
• Stamatios Kartalopoulos (University of Oklahoma, USA),
• Michael Kincaid (MSK & Associates, USA),
• Tarek El-Bawab (Jackson State University, USA).

Meetings

TAOS meetings are usually held twice a year, at major IEEE ICC and GLOBECOM conferences. Everyone is welcome to attend meetings. Minutes of the meetings are public and are available on the TAOS web site.

Subcommittees

Subcommittee on Telephone Instrument Testing (STIT)

The STIT subcommittee is chaired by John R. Bareham (MichTel Communications, USA).

Its scope focuses on testing and instrumentation for telephone lines and equipment. The STIT subcommittee issued several IEEE standards on these topics.

Mailing List

TAOS provides one unmoderated mailing list, hosted on the ComSoc server, as an effective mean for timely dissemination of information among TAOS members.

The TAOS mailing list currently includes more than 1000 recipients, selected among researchers, engineers, managers, professors or students who are active in TAOS areas of interest (e.g., authors of recent IEEE papers on topics within TAOS scope). The purpose of the mailing list is to stimulate participation from academia and industry to TAOS activities.

Sending messages to the TAOS list

Only list members can post to the list. To send a message to ALL list members, send an email to
We invite members to be considerate in sending emails to the list, since messages will be forwarded to all (more than 1000) subscribers. Spamming will be not tolerated.

Subscribing/Unsubscribing to/from the TAOS list

To join or leave the list, send an email to:
and type in the body of the message
or
To change your email address where you receive your TAOS messages, please unsubscribe from the old address and subscribe using the new address by following the instructions above.

Policy of use

The IEEE Communications Society's Board of Governors in its June, 2002 meeting in NYC, discussed the proper use of the mailing lists and approved several motions in that regard. An excerpt of the minutes from that meeting can be downloaded at address
http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/org/operation/techcom/tccc/minutes/postings_BoGminutes.pdf.
In particular, the mail lists of the IEEE Communications Society cannot be used to post:

• any item that reflects negatively on the reputation, character, professional ability or technical competence of anyone;
• any item of a sexually explicit nature;
• any item that disparages or demeans another’s ethnicity, religion, culture, or sexual orientation
• any item that misrepresents one’s position in the Communications Society or in any other professional organization;
• any item that promotes or serves as a marketing vehicle for materials in which the a TC committee member has a personal, financial, or business interest; this includes books, conferences and short courses in which the Communications Society does not have an interest (items for the general good such as announcements of faculty openings, fellowships, student grants, etc., may be posted);
• any item that advances the candidacy of an individual for an elected office in the IEEE (including ComSoc); this conforms to existing IEEE policy;
• any item that uses one’s position as a volunteer in ComSoc for personal gain;
• any item that announces or encourages participation in a venue that is clearly in conflict with any initiative of the IEEE Communications Society; (This includes calls-for-papers for competing publications or announcements for competing conferences. Since the Communications Society co-sponsors a number of publications and events, it may be well to seek the advice of the appropriate ComSoc officer for further insight when preparing items of this type.)

Meetings

TAOS meetings are usually held twice a year, at IEEE GLOBECOM and ICC conferences.
Everyone is welcome to attend meetings. Please contact TAOS officers for further information.

• Minutes of the meeting at GLOBECOM2007, Nov. 2007, Washington, DC, USA.
• Minutes of the meeting at ICC2007, June 2007, Glasgow, UK.
• Minutes of the meeting at Globecom2006, Dec. 2006, S. Francisco, CA, USA.
  
• Minutes of the meeting at ICC 2006, June 2006, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Minutes of the meeting at GLOBECOM 2005, Dec. 2005, St. Louis, MO, USA.
  

Main Activities Within IEEE Communications Society (2005-2006)

Cooperation with Other IEEE Communications Society Technical Committees

TAOS welcomes cooperation with other IEEE ComSoc Technical Committees, especially in those areas where TC scopes partly overlap. In particular, in 2005 and 2006, TAOS successfully co-organized symposia and conferences in cooperation with the following TCs.

• Optical Networking TC (ONTC)

On the one hand, TAOS scope in on topics dealing with optical physical level and transmission systems, such as transmission of optical signals, optical devices, optical wired and wireless systems. On the other, TAOS scope includes topics related specifically to the architecture and performance of optical access systems.
Hence, synergy with ONTC comes natural in dealing with optical systems and networks. In particular, in 2005 and 2006, cooperation with ONTC proved remarkably effective and rewarding, for all members involved, in the technical program management of the conference ONDM2005 and "Optical Systems and Networks" symposia in ICC2005, ICC2006 and ICC2007.

• Communications Switching and Routing (CS&R)

TAOS cooperated with CS&R in the technical program management of the conference ONDM 2005 and of the "Optical Systems and Networks" symposia in ICC2006 and ICC2007.

• Broadband on Power-Line (BoPL)

The Broadband on Power-Line (BoPL) subcommittee of the Emerging Technologies TC has been elevated to full TC in 2005. BoPL and TAOS endorse the "International Symposium on Power Line Communication and its applications" (ISPLC) in 2006 and 2007.
Owing to the proximity and overlap between BoPL and TAOS scopes, officers of both TCs aim at pursuing close cooperation also in the future.

Appointments in IEEE Communications Society Committees

The main appointments of TAOS members in IEEE Communications Society committees are the following:

• Stefano Bregni is voting member of the GLOBECOM/ICC Technical Content (GITC) Committee;
• Mike Kincaid is chair of the GLOBECOM/ICC Management and Strategy (GIMC) Committee and past chair (until 2005) of the Awards Committee;
• Steve Gorshe is member of the Awards Committee and of the Strategic Planning Committee;

Conferences

TAOS cooperates actively with other IEEE Communications Society Technical Committees in endorsing and organizing conferences, in particular in setting up the technical program and in managing successfully the process of paper review.

• IEEE GLOBECOM 2009, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, Nov. 2009.

S. Bregni is Symposia Chair, reporting directly to the TPC Chair M. Ulema.

• IEEE ICC 2008, Beijing, China, June 2008.

The current list of symposia includes two symposia endorsed by TAOS: Optical Networks and Systems and General Symposium on Selected Areas in Communications (S. Bregni, co-chair), in which Powerline Communications is a special track.

• IEEE GLOBECOM 2007, Washington, DC,  USA, Nov.-Dec. 2007.

TAOS proposed two symposia, namely Optical Communication Systems and Networks, in cooperation with the CS&R TC, and Emerging Technologies for Access and Home Networks, in cooperation with the Power Lines Communications (PLC) TC. Those proposals were merged with other ones from other TCs, also considering the list of standard symposia recommended by the GITC for all Globecom/ICC conferences starting from 2007. The current list of GLOBECOM 2007 symposia includes two symposia endorsed by TAOS: Optical Networks and Systems and General Symposium on Selected Areas in Communications, in which Powerline Communications is a special track (S. Bregni, co-chair).

• IEEE 5th Annual Conference on Communication Networks and Services Research (CNSR 2007), Fredericton, N. Brunswick, Canada, May 14-17, 2007.

TAOS endorses this conference and provides some TPC members.

• 6th International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (ICICS 2007), Singapore, December 2007

TAOS endorses this conference and provides some TPC members.

• IEEE ICC 2007, Glasgow,  UK, June 2007.

TAOS endorses the Optical Networks and Systems symposium (S. Bregni, co-chair) in cooperation with ONTC and the CS&R TC.

• IEEE GLOBECOM 2006, S. Francisco,  USA, Nov.-Dec. 2006.

TAOS endorses the General Conference on Emerging Technologies and the Advanced Technologies & Protocols for Optical Networks symposium, in cooperation with ONTC.

• IEEE ICC 2006, Instanbul, Turkey, June 2006.

TAOS endorsed ICC2006. TAOS members co-organized two symposia. In particular, S. Bregni was co-chair of the Optical Systems and Networks Symposium and M. Guizani was co-chair of the Wireless Ad-Hoc and Sensor Networks Symposium.
The ICC 2006 Optical Systems and Networks Symposium received 191 papers submitted. This figure represents a substantial increase, compared to the number of papers submitted to analogous symposia of previous ICC/GLOBECOM conferences (e.g., about +100% compared to the Globecom 2005 Photonic Technologies for Communications Symposium). The TPC comprises 53 members, mostly members of TAOS, ONTC and CS&R.

• IEEE International Symposium on Power Line Communication and Its Applications (ISPLC 2006), Orlando, FL, USA., March 2006.

TAOS endorses ISPLC 2006 with the PLC TC.

• IEEE GLOBECOM 2005, St. Louis, MO, USA, Nov-Dec 2005.

TAOS endorsed GLOBECOM 2005. TAOS members co-organized two symposia and served in various symposium TPCs. In particular, S. Bregni was vice-chair of the General Conference and M. Guizani was chair of the Computer and Network Security Symposium.
The General Conference received 251 papers submitted, 120 of which were accepted (48%). The TPC comprised 45 members. The 90% of papers had 3 or more reviews.

• IEEE ICC 2005, Seoul, Korea, May 2005.

TAOS endorsed ICC 2005. TAOS members co-organized one symposium and served in various symposium TPCs. In particular, M. Guizani and M. Hamdi were vice-chairs of the Optical Networking Symposium.

• IEEE/IFIP Optical Network Design and Modelling Conference (ONDM 2005), Milano, Italy, Feb 2005.

TAOS endorsed ONDM 2005, with the Optical Networking TC (ONTC) and the North-Italy IEEE Chapter. TAOS members organized the conference and managed its technical program. In particular, S. Bregni was technical program vice-chair and in the organizing committee.
ONDM2005 received 98 papers submitted, 53 of which were accepted (54%). The TPC comprised 32 members, mostly active members of TAOS and ONTC. The vast majority of papers had 3 or more reviews.

Journals and Magazines

• IEEE Global Communications Newsletter: S. Bregni is Editor-in-Chief;
• IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials: S. Bregni is Associate Editor;
  
• IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications: M. Guizani is in the editorial board.
• IEEE Communications Magazine: S. Gorshe is Associate Editor-In-Chief and Editor of the Broadband Access Series, M. Guizani is editor for the Internet Technology series, S. Kartalopoulos is area co-editor for Optical Communications and co-editor of the quarterly supplement IEEE Optical Communications (terminated on Dec. 2005), Tee-Hiang Cheng is Technical Editor, J.M.H. Elmirghani and I. White were guest editors for feature topic on Optical Storage Area Networks, March 2005.
• IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology: M. Guizani is Associate Editor. 
• IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications:M. Guizani is Associate Editor.
• IEEE Transactions on Communications:M. Hamdi is Associate Editor.
  
  

Distinguished Lecturer Program

Since 2004, S. Bregni has been Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society, with a lecture on synchronization of digital telecommunications networks. In the last years, the following four Distinguished Lecturer Tours have been successfully given:

• Nov. 2004: USA (IEEE ComSoc Dallas Section, TX; University of Oklahoma at Tulsa, OK; St. Louis University, MO).
• March 2005: Puerto Rico (Universidad del Turabo de Puerto Rico, Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Mayaguez) and Mexico (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara).
• June 2005: Poland (Poznan University of Technology).
• February 2006: India (Bombay, Sardar Patel College of Engineering; Delhi, Indian Istitute of Technology; Bangalore, IEEE ComSoc Chapter; Kerala, IEEE ComSoc Chapter).
• November 2006: Colombia (Bogota), Equador (Quito), Panama.
• October 2007: Mexico (Puebla, Universidad De Las Americas; Mexico City, Instituto Politecnico Nacional UPIITA), El Salvador (San Salvador, IEEE Section), Panama (IEEE Communications Society Charter), Colombia (Cartagena, Universidad Tecnologica de Bolivar).

Subcommittee on Telephone Instrument Testing (STIT)

John R. Bareham (MichTel Communications, USA) is chair of the TAOS Subcommittee on Telephone Instrument Testing (STIT). In 2005, STIT decided to:

• issue a Project Authorization Request (PAR) for revision of Standard 1329-1999 "IEEE Standard Method for Measuring Transmission Performance of Handsfree Telephone Sets";
• request to stabilize Standard 661-1979 (R1998) "IEEE Standard Method for Determining Objective Loudness Ratings of Telephone Connections".

Other Information and News

S. Kartalopoulos and S. Gorshe, members of the TAOS Steering committee, have been elected to the grade of IEEE Fellow. Congratulations!

In December 2006, TAOS has been recertified by the IEEE Communication Society, based on the report of activities submitted by TAOS officers to the TC Recertification Committee.

Jafaar Elmirghani received the 2005 IEEE Communications Society Harold Sobol Award for Exemplary Service to Meetings and Conferences ("For 10 years of outstanding service as a member of IEEE GLOBECOM/ICC Technical Program Committees and Organizer/Chair of many technical sessions and symposia").

In 2005, the TAOS email list on the IEEE Communications Society server was set up. The email list has address <taos@comsoc.org> and currently includes more than 700 recipients. Any list member can leave the list at any time with a simple command. Only list members can post messages to the list.

In 2005, the TAOS web site was put back on line. It has been restyled and its contents updated.

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Last update: July 2007 - Webmasters Davide Caratti & Stefano Bregni - © IEEE - All Rights Reserved