QUANTUMCOMM 2009--the International Conference on Quantum Communi- tion and Quantum Networking
(from satellite to nanoscale)--took place in Vico Equense near Naples Italy during October
26-30 2009. The conference made a significant step toward stimulating direct dialogue between
the communities of quantum physics and quantum information researchers who work with photons
atoms and electrons in pursuit of the common goal of investigating and utilizing the transfer
of physical information between quantum systems. This meeting brought together experts in
quantum communication quantum inf- mation processing quantum nanoscale physics quantum
photonics and networking. In the light of traditional approaches to quantum information
processing quantum communication mainly deals with encoding and securely distributing quantum
states of light in optical fiber or in free space in order to provide the technical means for
quantum cryptography applications. Exciting advances in the area of quantum c- munication over
the last decade have made the metropolitan quantum network a re- ity. Several papers presented
at this meeting have demonstrated that quantum crypt- raphy is approaching the point of
becoming a high-tech application rather than a - search subject. The natural distance
limitation of quantum cryptography has been significantly augmented using ideas of global
quantum communication with stab- orbit satellites. The results presented at this conference
demonstrated that practical secure satellite communication is clearly within reach.
