New platforms and services in the field of fixed and wireless interactive communication systems are a priority issue of European telecommunication and electronics industry and are prioritized in calls for new European research programs. The research results of the group, gained on EU IST projects are actively being incorporated in new standards in the broadcasting industry. New types of communication equipment also open a demand for adaptive services, which act independently of current equipment configuration. These restrictions include communication channel capacity, size and resolution of terminals and hardware resources of the equipment. In order to provide an optimal level of service under given conditions quantitative evaluation of service quality is required. A common framework (like MPEG-21) which allows structured approach to scalable multimedia communication services is also required. Personalized services and directed information seek and retrieval processes will make the amount of information controllable and are in focus of our and European research. The architecture of global communication systems is oriented towards non-hierarchical network structures, known as "peer-to-peer" networks and represents the research domain of our two actual EU IST projects. One of our challenges are alternative communication links for broadband access, such as high-voltage powerlines. By utilizing modern hardware design techniques these challenges can be realized in hardware.