Comp 346/446 - Intro to Telecommunications

Fall 2010: Tuesdays 7:00-9:30, Corboy Law 523

Text: Data and Computer Communications, William Stallings, new Ninth Edition (eighth may be ok), Prentice-Hall, 2010, ISBN-10: 0131392050; ISBN-13: 978-0131392052

General course groundrules are here. Exams will count for between 70% to 80% of your grade, with homework and programs making up the The final will be Tuesday, Dec 14, at our usual class time.

Here is a link to the course survey, https://surveys.luc.edu/opinio6/s?s=23607. The survey closes at 6:00 am Sunday morning, 12/12.

Spring 2025:
I am generally in my office on Mondays from 10:00 to noon, and from 1:45 to 3:45.
Sometimes I have meetings or come in late, so check first.
I am also available other times via Zoom, by appointment. Contact me via email for the Zoom meeting ID.

Course notes

Assignments

Java files

Here is my brief document on spread spectrum.

More documentation

• A good exposition of the Strowger switch
• Notes on CSMA by Jeff Andrews
• ATM Forum Traffic Management document, contains definition of GCRA (section 4), but tends to refer to things before they are defined.
• Here's a Lily Tomlin bit on what life was like under the telephone-company monopoly.
• RFC 2205, the defining document for RSVP.

Course Outline:

What is telecommunications? How is it different from data communications?
Characteristics of voice traffic: minimal delay, even smaller variation in delay, reservations
POTS; circuit switching
Connecting exchanges
Long lines, physical transmission issues
Digitization; encoding of voice
TDM, FDM (note that there are some subtle encoding issues)
Basics of packet switching
Basics of routing
Brief review of TCP/IP

Packet switching again
ATM
Congestion management
SONET, optical fiber
Frame Relay, ISDN
Cellular phones

Chapters in book to be read are listed in parenthesis.

1. Introduction, OSI Model, Protocols and Architecture (Ch. 1,Ch. 2)