Customer Reviews

DSL : Simulation Techniques and Standards Development for Digital Subscriber Lines

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book initially presented itself as providing a thorough technical background on issues pertaining to the analysis and design of xDSL related technologies. I am afraid to say that it has not lived up to my expectations. This text, for a technical exposition, is very poorly written, incorrect derivations and equations abound, incomplete or absent explanations for derivations seem to be the norm. The authour makes conclusions without justification and leaves it up to the reader to 'guess' for him or herself. Typographical errors are the bane of any technical book and make reading it difficult and frustrating at the best of times. This book has much potential and I sincerely hope that any subsequent editions will overcome its current shortcomings.

It did not live up to my expectations The first half of the book covers basic communication theory information such as channel equalization, coding, error corection and etc. These topics are also covered so basically that it does not add anything to the reader's knowledge. The second section of the book, DSL section, does not contain any network level DSL access systems architecture design and system management techniques. Therefore, I could not find valuable, practical information for the traffic engineers and network designers in this book.

I visited this book with certain technical questions in mind. I was offered great hope by its Table of Contents: it certainly looked like a thorough coverage of the DSL technology. Maybe it really is. But the way the materials are written renders the book almost useless. There exist numerous erroneous equations as if the book was not proof-read at all. I was also disturbed by the fact that very few (almost no) explanations are offered after equations, tables and figures are presented or derived. Instead of being told, readers are expected to guess what the writer's intentions are.

Overall the book is well-written and concise. The author is very adept at introducing new topics in a clear and efficient manner. The book is the best single source I found for professionals who quickly want to come up to speed on DSL technologies.

I bought this book with great expectations. It covered all relevant subjects related to DSL. Even the first chapter summarizing POTs cable plant was encouraging. But, the book is horrible. Things are just thrown together without explaining clearly any of the subjects. Despite all the bad reviews you might be tempted to buy this book because there is not another book that covers all the DSL related material included in this book. Don't!
There are many good books on communication theory that cover equalization, echo cancellation, adaptive filtering, error correcting codes, noise, etc. It might be necessary to read some of these general books + a simple book on DSL to cover the same material as this book does.

There seems to be a lot of useful information in this text, but to get to it you must wade through a small mountain of transposed dependent clauses, misuse of plural case, typographical error, and generally putrid writing style. It seems the author learned english as a second language, and no one did a careful review prior to publication.

It's a good reference book, but it could be made better if organized well. A lot of info are included, and it will be perfect if it can explain better. However, so far I consider this book the best one among all the books on xDSL technology.