Welcometothe11th International Conferenceon Telecommunications(ICT2004)ho- ed by the city of Fortaleza (Brazil). As with other ICT events in the past, this professional meeting continues to be highly competitive and very well perceived by the international networking community, – tracting excellent contributions and active participation. This year, a total of 430 papers from 36 countries were submitted, from which 188 were accepted. Each paper was – viewed by several members of the ICT2004 Technical Program Committee. We were very pleased to receive a large percentage of top-quality contributions. Thetopicsofsubmittedpaperscoveredawidespectrumfromphotonictechniques, signal processing, cellularnetworks, andwirelessnetworks, toadhocnetworks.Webelievethe ICT2004papersofferawiderangeofsolutionstokeyproblemsintelecommunications, and describe challenging avenues for industrial research and development. In addition to the conference regular sessions, seven tutorials and a workshop were organized.Thetutorialsfocusedonspecialtopicsdealingwithnext-generationnetworks. The workshop focused on particular problems and solutions in heavily distributed and shareable environments. We would like to thank the ICT 2004 Technical Program Committee members and referees. Without their support, the creation of such a broad conference program would not be possible. We also thank all the authors who made a particular effort to contribute to ICT2004. We truly believe that due to all these efforts the ?nal conference program consisted of top-quality contributions. We are also indebted to many individuals and organizations that made this conference possible. In particular, we would like to thank the members of the ICT2004 Organizing Committee for their help in all aspects of the organization of thisprofessional meeting.