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Reviewer: Donald W. Gotterbarn

This book is a welcome addition to the telecommunications textbooks currently available. The book, intended as a text for a one- or two-semester course, updates and expands upon the subjects of the author's earlier, excellent text [1]. As in the earlier work, there is a clear introduction to queueing theory and a special chapter on contention techniques, with a comparison of random access and polling techniques. To enhance its use as a textbook, each chapter ends with a set of graded problems. This work brings forward and updates many of the fine explanations of theory from the earlier work. This book, like Tanenbaum's Computer networks [2], organizes the early chapters using the layered architecture of the ISO Network Model. After a general introduction to the book, elementary queueing theory is discussed as preparation for later performance analysis and modeling of network protocols. Chapter 3 gives a general introduction to the ISO Model and compares it to X.25 and SNA. The discussions of SNA, here and in later chapters, are among the clearest I have seen. Instead of starting with the physical layer, the author goes immediately to a chapter on the data link layer. The treatment of the physical layer in the entire text is minimal, and there is even less about the nature of signals—frequency, phase, and amplitude. The X.25 and SNA examples are carried forward into Chapter 5 and analyzed as examples of congestion control. Datagrams are also included here. This work contains one of the few full discussions of the transport layer. The last three chapters are devoted to circuit switching, and a significant portion of the last chapter is about ISDN. I found the discussion of the IEEE 802 standards to be quite limited. There is an absence of a full description of 802.4, and the influence industry that is exerting to bring about acceptance of one access protocol over the others was not indicated. There is also no mention of the development of standards for Metropolitan Area Networks (802.6), Broadband Cable Systems (802.7), and Fiber Optic Media (802.8). According to the author, “the stress of the book is on the quantitative performance evaluation of telecommunications networks and systems.” I felt, however, that this book was directed at a less mathematically-sophisticated audience than was [1]. There seemed to be more descriptions of the equations and how the inferences work than equations. This is a long book that provides ample material to use in an introductory, one-semester or one-year course. The author provides suggestions for using this textbook in different types of communications courses. The diagrams are clear and abundant with good explanations. The typographical errors are few, and the ones I found do not mislead the reader. The book has an extensive bibliography. There is a wealth of information here. Its potential as a reference book, however, is marred by a sparse index. For example, there are no major references to noise or error. There is no reference to traffic engineering, yet a ten-page section of the book is devoted to the subject. I found the book to be a good introductory text for a data communications course that has an emphasis on quantitative analysis or for a course that does not emphasize communications software design.