JOHN B. ANDERSON holds the Ericsson Chair in Digital Communication at Lund University, Sweden. His research work is in coding and communication algorithms, bandwidth-efficient coding, and the application of these to data transmission. He has served widely as a consultant in these fields. Dr. Anderson served on the Publications Board of IEEE from 1989 91 and 1994 96, and was editor in chief of the IEEE Press from 1994 96. He has served as associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (1980 84) and as guest editor of the IEEE Transactions on Communications. He presently serves as Series Editor for the IEEE Press Series on Digital and Mobile Communication. He is a Fellow of the IEEE (1987) and received the Humboldt Research Prize (Germany) in 1991. In 1996 he was elected Swedish National Visiting Chair in Information Technology. He received the IEEE Third Millenium Medal in 2000.