24 VERY LARGE PROJECTS/EDITED BY KEN YOUNG Spain is the eighth largest economy worldwide according to the gross domestic product (GDP) ranking. Among the very large R&D projects in Spain is a new program called CENIT, which funds four-year-projects of 20–40 million budget each, of which at least 25 percent is contracted to public research bodies. CENIT stands for National Strategic Consortia for Tech- nical Research [1]. It finances industrial research projects featuring a strategic dimension, very large size, and long sci- entific-technical outreach. The projects are oriented to planned research in future technological areas and with international projection, whose target is the generation of new knowledge that can be useful for the creation of new products, processes, or services, or for the integration of strategic interest technologies, contributing to improve the technological positioning of the Spanish productive sector. The program has the following pri- ority thematic areas: • Biomedicine and Health Science (including Biotechnology) • Food Technologies (including Biotechnology) • Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) • Production and Design Technologies • Environment, Sustainable Develop- ment, and Renewable Energies • New Materials and Nanotechnologies • Sustainable Mobility (automotive, railway) and Aerospatial • Security So far, there have been three calls for proposals, in which a total of around 50 projects worth 1200 million have been selected. There are 10 projects related to ICT: • ITECBAN: New information systems for the bank sector • HESPERIA: security of public spaces • CDTEAM: multimodal medical imag- ing • NANOFARMA: nanotechnologies for health medications (less related to ICT) • VISION: new-generation video com- munications • I3MEDIA: automatic creation and management of intelligent audiovisu- al contents • TELMEX: professional mobile broadband communications • AMIVITAL: personal digital environ- ment for health and welfare • INREDIS: interfaces for the disabled • SEGUR@: ICT security • MARTA: advanced transport net- works for mobility and intelligent transport systems (ITS) Telefonica participates in five ICT projects (coordinates two projects and has very significant participation in the other three), two of them jointly with the University of Valladolid (which also participates in another project). In this article we describe the CENIT projects in the ICT field related to services in which Telefónica partici- pates: automotive networking (MARTA), ambient intelligence for e- health (AmiVital), and augmented telepresence (VISION). Reference [2] covered the European perspective; this article complements the vision with the Spanish dimension. MARTA Vehicular networks and services are becoming a reality, driven by safety requirements and the investments of car manufacturers and public transport authorities. Consequently, much research effort is being put into defin- ing radio technologies (e.g., IEEE802.11p, WAVE: Wireless Access for the Vehicular Environment), net- work models, and mechanisms (e.g., vehicular ad hoc networks, IEEE802.21 seamless handover), and developing services for the vehicular environment (e.g., the European eCall). In this context MARTA ([3]) aims to establish the scientific and techno- logical basis and principles for mobility IEEE Communications Magazine • June 2008 TELCO SERVICES FOR END CUSTOMERS WITHIN SPANISH PROGRAMMES ANTONIO SANCHEZ, BELÉN CARRO, PEDRO ROMO, AND CAROLINA PINART