Customer Reviews

Understanding Data Communications (6th Edition)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I review many technical books in the fields of telephony and data communications every year, and I found this book to be a great Intro text. It covers data communications concepts from the beginning, providing readers with a solid base of knowledge.

I use this book in some of the data communications classes I teach, and can easily recommend it.

I was hoping for something a little more detailed and technical. It is a good overview of the various technologies out there but not reference material. It is prticularly weak on the following topics, RS232, T1, V.35.

This text is simple to follow even if you have only a very generic knowledge of computers and related hardware. Computers, however, aren't the only subject contained , not by any means. All types of communicaton systems and standards are touched on at least briefly. Satellite, fiber optic, LAN, WAN, internet, microwave, and telecommunication systems are among the topics included. Modems and modem protocols are exhaustively explained, maybe even excessively so. The illustrations contained are extremely useful and appropriate for simplifying complex topics, they may even over simplify things somewhat. Throughout the text are personal touches and light humors that make it that much more enjoyable to read. I definetly recommend this text to anyone who has the slightest interest in how communications systems work.

I'm a student at a community college, evening class. This book is the textbook we're using. It works well in that environment, but I'm not sure an entry level reader will benefit much by using this book without an instructor.

This book doesnt not provide practical knowledge to the reader. It is way too easy for reader who want to find out more in particular topics such as networking, WLAN, or even just RS232. Oftenly, the author just list out many standards (which many are not common in the industry or even obsolute), and without further elaboration on how to use it. In other word, it is lack of practical usefulness.

In contrast, I think it is too complicated to beginner. The author is greedy to put in wide range of topics, and cover some detail on hardware, electronics, information theory, compression etc which are in the area of telecommunication engineering. Therefore, in every chapter, you will need to go through the history development of some basic electrical theory, information theory, hardware implementation, and many protocols. Often, after I have spent time understanding a particular protocol, then later was told that it was not used anymore and it has been be replaced by another protocol.

In conclusion, I think it is more appropriate to use this book as a reference. You want to know some basic knowledge on certain topic, just find the particular pages from the content, and jump to it. Don't read this book from the begining to the end.

This book is reasonable but has a lot of defects. I list two I consider more annoying: 1) It was carelessly edited. For example on page 94 there is an incomprehensible formula. Another example is that the concept of Baud is not in the index. It is defined on page 138 2) It is not very deep. For example, on page 199 it is said that Shannon formula (presented on page 115) is a limitation on the number of Bauds that can be transmitted. This is wrong and I suggest that the reader that want to learn about Shannon theory either to read the book by John R. Pierce, An introduction to information theory or see page 200 (mainly figure 5.21) of the book Understanding Information Transmission by J.B. Anderson and R. Johannesson.

This book was very understandable. Gilbert Held presents his information very well. I did find several typos, but that's a minor quibble.