Networking Fundamentals - Wide, Local And Personal Area Communications

Focusing on the physical layer, Networking Fundamentals provides essential information on networking technologies that are used in both wired and wireless networks designed for local area networks (LANs) and wide-area networks (WANs). The book starts with an overview of telecommunications followed by four parts, each including several chapters. Part I explains the principles of design and analysis of information networks at the lowest layers. It concentrates on the characteristics of the transmission media, applied transmission and coding, and medium access control. Parts II and III are devoted to detailed descriptions of important WANs and LANs respectively with Part II describing the wired Ethernet and Internet as well as cellular networks while Part III covers popular wired LANs and wireless LANs (WLANs), as well as wireless personal area network (WPAN) technologies. Part IV concludes by examining security, localization and sensor networking. The partitioned structure of the book allows flexibility in teaching the material, encouraging the reader to grasp the more simple concepts and to build on these foundations when moving onto more complex information.
Networking Fundamentals contains numerous illustrations, case studies and tables to supplement the text, as well as exercises with solutions at the end of each chapter. There is also a companion website with password protected solutions manual for instructors along with other useful resources.
Provides a unique holistic approach covering wireless communication technologies, wired technologies and networking
One of the first textbooks to integrate all aspects of information networks while placing an emphasis on the physical layer and systems engineering aspects
Contains numerous illustrations, case studies and tables to supplement the text, as well as exercises with solutions at the end of each chapter
Companion website with password protected solutions manual and other useful resources

Keveh Pahlavan, is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), a Professor of Computer Science (CS), and Director of the Center for Wireless Information Network Studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, MA. He is also a visiting Professor of Telecommunication Laboratory and CWC, University of Oulu, Finland. His area of research is location-aware broadband wireless indoor networks. He has contributed to numerous seminal technical publications and patents in this field. He is the principal author of the Wireless Information Networks (with Allen Levesque), John Wiley and Sons, 1995 and Principles of Wireless Networks – A Unified Approach (with P. Krishnamurthy), Prentice Hall, 2002. He has been a consultant to a number of companies, including CNR Inc., GTE Laboratories, Steinbrecher Corp., Simplex, Mercury Computers, WINDATA, SieraComm, 3COM, and Code/Motorola in Massachusetts; JPL, Savi Technologies, RadioLAN in California; Airnet in Ohio; United Technology Research Center in Connecticut; Honeywell in Arizona; Nokia, LK-Products, Elektrobit, TEKES, the Finnish Academy in Finland; and NTT in Japan. Before joining WPI, he was the director of advanced development at Infinite Inc., Andover, MA, working on data communications. He started his career as an assistant professor at Northeastern University, Boston, MA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Wireless Information Networks. He was the founder, the program chairman, and organizer of the IEEE Wireless LAN Workshop, Worcester, in 1991 and 1996 and the organizer and technical program chairman of the IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Communications, Boston, MA, 1992 and 1998. He has also been selected as a member of the Committee on Evolution of Untethered Communication, US National Research Council, 1997 and has led the US review team for the Finnish R&D Programs in Electronic and Telecommunication in 1999 and NETs project in 2003. For his contributions to the wireless networks he was the Westin Hadden Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at WPI during 1993-1996, was elected as a fellow of the IEEE in 1996 and became a fellow of Nokia in 1999. From May to December of 2000 he was the first Fulbright-Nokia scholar at the University of Oulu, Finland. Because of his inspiring visionary publications and his international conference activities for the growth of the wireless LAN industry, he is referred to as one of the founding fathers of the wireless LAN industry. In the past few years his research work has been the core for than 25 patents by Skyhook Wireless, where he acts as the chief technical advisor. In January 2008 Steve Jobs announced that Skyhook Wireless’s WiFi localization technology is used in iPhone. Details of his contributions to this field are available at www.cwins.wpi.edu.
Prashant Krishnamurthy is an associate professor with the graduate program in Telecommunications and Networking at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pitt, he regularly teaches courses on cryptography, network security, and wireless communications and networks. His research interests are wireless network security, wireless data networks, and position location in indoor wireless networks. He is the coauthor of the books Principles of Wireless Networks – A Unified Approach and Physical Layer of Communication Systems and is a co-editor of Information Assurance: Dependability and Security in Networked Systems. He served as the chair of the IEEE Communications Society Pittsburgh Chapter from 2000 to 2005. He obtained his PhD from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, in 1999.

5/5 stars (IT Training, November 2009)
I would wholeheartedly recommend the book to everyone, whether novices or expert, as it covers an incredible amount of knowledge on communication. (BCS, September 2009)

About the Authors.
Preface.
1. Introduction to Information Networks.
1.1 Introduction.
1.2 Evolution of Wide-Area Networks.
1.3 Evolution of Local Networks.
1.4 Structure of the book.
PART ONE: FUNDAMENTALS OF TRANSMISSION AND ACCESS.
2. Characteristics of the Medium.
2.1 Introduction.
2.2 Guided Media.
2.3 Wireless Media.
3. Fundamentals of Physical Layer Transmission.
3.1 Information Transmission.
3.2 Transmission Techniques and Signal Constellation.
3.3 Performance of the Physical Layer.
3.4 Wideband Modems.
4. Coding and Reliable Packet Transmission.
4.1 Introduction.
4.2 Source Coding and Framing Techniques.
4.3 FEC Coding.
4.4 Coding for Spread-Spectrum and Code-Division Multiple Access Systems.
4.5 ARQ Schemes.
4.6 Flow Control Protocols.
5. Medium Access Methods.
5.1 Introduction.
5.2 Centralized Assigned Access Schemes.
5.3 Distributed Random Access Networks.
5.4 Integration of Voice and Data Traffic.
PART TWO: WIDE-AREA NETWORKS.
6. The Internet.
6.1 Introduction: Internet Infrastructure.
6.2 Addressing.
6.3 Quality of Service.
6.4 Bridges or LAN Switches.
6.5 Switches.
6.6 Routers.
7. Cellular Networks.
7.1 Introduction.
7.2 General Architecture of a Cellular Network.
7.3 Mechanisms to Support a Mobile Environment.
7.4 Protocol Stack in Cellular Networks.
7.5 Physical Layer in TDMA Air Interface.
7.6 Physical Layer in CDMA Air Interface.
7.7 Achieving Higher Data Rates in Cellular Networks.
7.8 Deployment of Cellular Networks.
PART THREE: LOCAL AND PERSONAL-AREA NETWORKS.
8. IEEE 802-3 Ethernet.
8.1 Introduction.
8.2 Legacy 10 Mb/s Ethernet.
8.3 Evolution of the Physical Layer.
8.4 Emergence of Additional Features for Ethernet.
9. IEEE Wireless Local-Area Network Standards.
9.1 Introduction.
9.2 IEEE 802.11 and WLANs.
9.3 IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX).
10. IEEE 802.15 Wireless Personal-Area Network.
10.1 Introduction.
10.2 IEEE 802.15.1 Bluetooth.
10.3 Interference between Bluetooth and 802.11.
10.4 IEEE 802.15.3 Ultra Wideband Wireless.
10.5 IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee.
PART FOUR: SYSTEM ASPECTS.
11. Network Security.
11.1 Introduction.
11.2 Network Attacks and Security Issues.
11.3 Protection and Prevention.
11.4 Detection.
11.5 Assessment and Response.
12. Wireless Localization.
12.1 Introduction.
12.2 What is Wireless Geolocation?
12.3 RF Location Sensing and Positioning Methodologies.
12.4 LCS Architecture for Cellular Systems.
12.5 Positioning in Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks.
13. Wireless Sensor Networks.
13.1 Introduction.
13.2 Sensor Network Applications.
13.3 Sensor Network Architecture and Sensor Devices.
13.4 The PHY Layer in Sensor Networks.
13.5 The MAC Layer in Sensor Networks.
13.6 Higher Layer Issues in Sensor Networks.
References.
Appendix A: What is Decibel?
Appendix B: STC for Two Transmitters and One Receiver.
Appendix C: Source Coding.
C.1 Source Coding for Voice.
C.2 Source Coding for Images and Video.
Appendix D: Acronyms.
Appendic E: List of Variables.
Index.