Information accumulated during centuries and millennia, stored and contemporary, surrounding us in the present information field is the main wealth of mankind.

     The main achievement of mankind in the third millennium is the possibility to obtain and exchange information efficiently at any time of the day and at any point of the terrestrial globe. It can be made due to the highly developed infrastructure of telecommunication networks and systems, the highest integration of all kinds of communication and the widespread application of computer technologies and computer systems.

     The contemporary communication systems are spatially distributed systems aimed to serve masses of people. They have a net structure consisting of the sources and receivers of information, hardware and communication channels. Any communication system is a highly developed information network transferring enormous information flows via its channels and simultaneously serving a large number of users. If previous communication networks were highly tailored, for example, telephone and telegraphic networks, computer or mobile radio communication networks, today most of all information networks is constructed on the principle of service integration, i.e., providing the telephone communication such networks simultaneously allow transferring, accumulating and distributing of information, texts, images, audio, multimedia information and stereo-programs, delivering of electronic mail, and giving Internet and many other services.

     Networks can be either local, which cover the limited territory, corporative (on an enterprise scale) or they can represent a set of local networks connected together and covering the territory where one enterprise or group of enterprises are closely located. They can also be territorial occupying the significant geographical area (region) and global ones occupying entire world-wide space.

     It is clear that when constructing the local and corporate networks, only the wire communications channels including the high-speed fiber-optic or the wireless lines of communications based, for example, on the technologies of radio Ethernet can be used, the creation of global networks requires the wide integration of the both wire and wireless channels including satellite channels and communication networks.

     The transmission of large information flows at a high speed, the solution of these flows routing problems, high -quality information transfer, control and synchronization of network as a whole and each of its components are not possible today without using digital systems and intellectual computer engineering. Therefore, most of contemporary systems and communication networks are just the digital systems which use powerful computational and program-algorithmic means.

     So, what does "Information communication network" mean? This is a communication network, where information is the product of generation, processing, storage and usage. It is a set of technical, technological and organization means which have to serve users. It is also a set of standards, rules and protocols of maintaining the communication, registration and processing of information, selection of working channels and time of communication seances which provide transfer of information in necessary directions and correct interpretation in data by all participants of data exchange process. And, at last, it is a set of all information networks, i.e. telephone, telegraphic, mobile radio, and satellite communications, different computational networks including the global information network Internet.

     Information communication networks is one of the directions of mankind activities which is dynamically developing and will always be in a great demand.