Recent advances in the technologies underlying the telecommunication and computing industries have led to the rapid development of broadband communications systems and of multimedia equipment. The Internet has developed very quickly as the prime candidate to form the network technology of the future, and is being embraced by telecommunication operators and their suppliers. International standards and de-regulation are major influences on these technology developments; this includes the activities of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that has responsibility for all of the Internet protocols including IP and TCP. Multimedia technologies and broadband communications have opened up a whole range of new applications, including simple Web access, multimedia streaming, and e-commerce. This course covers a number of the major advances in telecommunications networks and Internet technology that have enabled these changes. It also looks at the issues of deploying these advanced features in real world scenarios. Router designs capable of supporting the performance demands of today's networks are discussed.