With the advent of the‘digital revolution’that has made possible services such as the world wide web, satellite broadcasting and mobile and trunk telephony, the finite RF spectrum allocated for terrestrial and satellite telecommunication systems is becoming increasingly crowded. This has impacted significantly upon the performance required from the microwave equipment that comprises these systems. In the case of microwave filters, greater in-band linearity to avoid signal distortion and out-of-band isolation to suppress interference are routinely specified, which can only be satisfied by advanced filtering characteristics. This article presents the coupling matrix approach to the synthesis of prototype filter networks, enabling the realization of the hardware embodying the enhanced performance needed by today’s high capacity systems.