The research here is all about core and metro networks, so those are the networks connecting metropolitan areas to each other and the ones connecting the big us

The research here is all about core and metro networks, so those are the networks connecting metropolitan areas to each other and the ones connecting the big users within metro areas. The home users and mobile users are not directly connected to these networks, but through e.g. your providers passive optical network. You can think about this similar to a road network, you are living on the little side roads, these are the big highways and ring roads. But because everyone is using more and more data on their home and mobile devices, there needs to be bigger pipes in the core network (despite more and more local data centres for caching)