Customer Reviews

Voice & Data Communications Handbook (Standards & Protocols)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I bought "Voice and Data Communications Handbook, Fourth Edition" (VADCH:4E) to gain a general understanding of communications technologies beyond the LAN. Although the book mentions all of the systems which interested me, I was not satisfied with the manner in which they were covered. VADCH:4E is better than Ross' "Telecommunications Technologies" but inferior to Green's "Irwin Handbook of Telecommunications." Nevertheless, I'm still looking for an author who delivers the goods on voice and data communications essentials.

VADCH:4E's table of contents is sure to impress; it mentions T carriers, VPNs, X.25, Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, SMDS, Frame Relay, ISDN, ATM, DSL, SS7, LNP, Cellular/PCS, WAP, 3G Wireless, SONET/SDH, and other key telecom systems and concepts. Unfortunately, I rarely finished a chapter with a good grasp of the material. I desperately searched for clues to questions I felt were key to understanding each technology. Rather than launching into an extended discussion of each system, I would have preferred hearing exactly how each technology works, with comparison to other technologies. More is not better if the "more" isn't helpful!

VADCH:4E is advertised as being "straightforward and jargon-free." This approach supposedly appeals to management types. In reality, the book swings wildly from mind-numbing grade-school-level analogies to material only understood with outside references. A 1074 page book needs to pick a writing style and stay the course. Otherwise, it alienates both nontechnical and technical readers. (Incidentally, technical readers may wonder why the authors believe Windows screen savers contribute to LAN traffic; see page 674 to read this odd claim.)

On a positive note, VADCH:4E consistently offered useful information on the history and business rationale for many telecom systems. Many of the connectivity diagrams were excellent. (These were usually offset by cheesy "clip-art" type graphics elsewhere, unfortunately.) VADCH:4E also includes descriptions of the framing formats for most telecom transmission systems.

Overall, I don't recommend reading a book this large if it doesn't answer the key questions I expect readers to ask. While I'm more familiar with telecom basics after reading VADCH:4E, I still hope another book makes more sense of the telecommunications environment.

The information was good, but not technical. The section about PBXs discussed cost more then how they work. As a managerial tool, its not bad, but as an engineer, I found it lacking in technical information that I like to have. If you're looking for diagrams and formulas, look for something else.

While this is a big fat book< almost a thousand pages, and not many pictures> this was a very easy read. Just about everything was covered in the voice and data world, anyone working in either field would have a good history and working knowledge what where we have been where we are and where we are going. The writing style was enjoyable entertaining and funny while keeping to the point, overviews where given followed by description of the technical with applied examples. Even the person makinf discisions on Voice or data issues would be well served to buy the book for the 1st 7 chapters alone, if you work on the engineering side I am sure you will continue to the end of the book. I liked this book so much I ordered his other book on Broadband.

I puchased this book, in addition to many other telecom books and found this to be one of the worst ones. Not only is the information useless it is written in a diffucult to understand fashion. I recommend that you do not waste corporate money of this book.

I'm new to telecom and bought this book to get up to speed. I must say first and foremost that I am getting up to speed.

But right after that I have to say that I can't read more than 10 pages in a row without finding a glaring error. For example, the term "jitter" is defined twice in two pages. Why? Plenty of typos, some of the illustrations look like the postscript monster ate them, and the 1,000 pages could easily be condensed to 500-600 by getting rid of redundancy.

For example, the difference between analog amplifiers and digital repeaters is defined around 5 times in the first 300 pages (with more or less the same illustration at least two of those times). So, yeah, I get the concept now and couldn't forget it if I wanted to, but I didn't need to be told so many times.

All that said, if I would recommend this book to anyone new to telecom, but advise them to be gentle critics or keep their red pens handy.

As a product manager for a major telecom company, I need a book that I can reference quickly for a complete overview on topics such as SONET, Frame Relay and ADSL. This book fits the bill for me.

Not only do the authors'offer lucid explanations, but the book is interesting to read. When was the last time you could say that about a technical book?

I would rate this book a must have for anyone in the telecom field at over 900 pages it packs the info in!

This book has alot of excellent information, However...., it claims in the description to cover DSL. It appears once in the book in one sentence..... This refers to the signature edition

This is easily the best introductory book I've run across. It covers a wide range of topics in a manner that is conversational rather than dry and boring. It's an easy read and they make some very complicated subject matter very easy to understand. I was constantly amazed at how the material sprang off the page. Some outstanding historical material as well -- excellent overview of where the phone system came from.

This book is easily the best introduction to voice and data communications I've seen. I wish I had this when I first got into the business 10 years ago! Jargon isn't used until after it's introduced, text is plain and easy to read, and illustrations are clear and informative. My only quibbles are the index could be better, and a larger glossary would be very nice. Also, it's not quite as up to date as I had hoped it to be; for example, it talks about V.34 as a pending standard, and no mention is made at all of V.90. Nevertheless, at $65, this 900 page book is well worth the price.

Since this is the Third Edition and the copyright is 2000, I expected this book to be more up-to-date. It barely touches on any LAN speed faster than 100M. I thought it interesting that the author considers Frame Relay to be "new and is just now becoming an acceptable means of transporting information". As far as I know, Frame Relay has been around for several years and the use is far spread. It also talks about Cascade Communications, which changed to Ascend Communication in 1997, which in turn was acquired by Lucent in 1999. It also still references US West instead of Qwest. The authors tend to repeat information in the voice section. I would like to have seen more detail on the Data side of communications. The book is a good basic starting point for learning Voice and Data Communications, but leaves too much out to be a good reference book.