e-Photon/ONE Network of Excellence (NoE) aims at integrating and focusing the rich know-how available in Europe on optical communication and networks, both in universities and in research centres of major telecom manufacturers and operators. The set of available expertise ranges from optical technologies, networking devices and network architectures and protocols, to the new services fostered by photonic technologies. The NoE will contribute to the Strategic Objective “Broadband for All”, with a particular focus (quoting from the EC IST 2003-2004 Workprogramme, page 15) on “low cost access equipment”, “new concepts for network management, control and protocols”, and “increasing bandwidth capacity in the access network as well in the underlying optical core/metro network (including in particular optical burst and packet switching)”. The main technical focus of the NoE is to demonstrate the potential advantages of optical technologies in telecommunication networks with respect to electronic technologies. Strong cooperation among the participants to the NoE will favour a consensus on the engineering choices towards the deployment of cost-effective optical technologies in networking. This will support the future Internet, providing inputs to the standardization bodies and guidelines to the operators, as well as competitive advantages to European telecom equipment manufacturers. Integration will be pursued primarily by establishing long-term collaborations among partners in terms of research, infrastructures sharing, and education and training. The main instruments used to achieve these long-lasting collaborations are the regular exchange of researchers between partners, and the development of joint teaching programs. Dissemination will be pursued by means of coordinated publication activities, offering training programs, the organization of technical events, and interactions with other consortia in the same technical area. Research activities will mainly be carried out in research programs external to the NoE, both at the national and at the European level. Well focused technical research programs will be activated internally to the NoE.