High speed internet access is recognised as becoming increasingly important as demands for bandwidth increase. One of the key issues for Europe is how to enable ubiquitous broadband access of at least 1 Gb/s per subscriber economically within the next decade, whilst meeting the shorter term needs of system operators and users. Investment in the development of next generation optical access technologies will enable a future network to be deployed which will radically reduce infrastructure costs through removal of local exchanges and much of the metro network.PIANO+ aims at consolidating the respective funding activities throughout Europe and achieving the best possible exploitation of the resources and the innovative potential of European industry and science. This shall be achieved through a joint call focussing on photonic technology and system architectures for the scalable, future proof, cost-effective and energy efficient access network.Topic and basic concept of this EN+ originate from the Mirror Group of the European Technology Platform Photonics21 which is made up of governmental representatives from the Member and Associated States involved with the promotion of photonics.