Future networks are likely to exhibit unpredictable and complex behavior and dynamics; to span a broad range of technologies and bandwidths, from wireless sensors to high-performance, international connections; and to carry increasingly large amounts of increasingly demanding traffic. This cluster supports a range of research and education activities in networking technology and systems. Its goals are to sustain the science and technology needed to create next-generation networks as well as to address the limitations of existing networks.

Topical areas of current interest include projects to create next-generation networks, increase fundamental understanding of large and complex heterogeneous networks, and continue the evolution of the network by overcoming existing limitations and by adding new capabilities and services. Targeted focus areas are programmable wireless networks, which seek to exploit the capabilities of programmable radios to make more effective use of the frequency spectrum and to improve wireless network connectivity; and networking of sensor systems, which seeks to create architectures, tools, algorithms, and systems that will make it easy to assemble and configure a network of sensor systems.