Communication Networks: A Concise Introduction, Second Edition - Paperback

by Jean Walrand (Author), Shyam Parekh (Author)

This book results from many years of teaching an upper division course on communication networks in the EECS department at the University of California, Berkeley. It is motivated by the perceived need for an easily accessible textbook that puts emphasis on the core concepts behind current and next generation networks. After an overview of how today's Internet works and a discussion of the main principles behind its architecture, we discuss the key ideas behind Ethernet, WiFi networks, routing, internetworking, and TCP. To make the book as self-contained as possible, brief discussions of probability and Markov chain concepts are included in the appendices. This is followed by a brief discussion of mathematical models that provide insight into the operations of network protocols. Next, the main ideas behind the new generation of wireless networks based on LTE, and the notion of QoS are presented. A concise discussion of the physical layer technologies underlying various networks is alsoincluded. Finally, a sampling of topics is presented that may have significant influence on the future evolution of networks, including overlay networks like content delivery and peer-to-peer networks, sensor networks, distributed algorithms, Byzantine agreement, source compression, SDN and NFV, and Internet of Things.

Author Biography

Jean Walrand received his Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley, and has been on the faculty of that department since 1982. He is the author of An Introduction to Queueing Networks (Prentice Hall, 1988), Communication Networks: A First Course (2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, 1998), and Probability in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Amazon, 2014), and co-author of High-Performance Communication Networks (2nd ed., Morgan Kaufman, 2000), Scheduling and Congestion Control for Communication and Processing Networks (Morgan & Claypool, 2010), and Sharing Network Resources (Morgan & Claypool, 2014). His research interests include stochastic processes, queuing theory, communication networks, game theory, and the economics of the Internet. Prof. Walrand is a Fellow of the Belgian American Education Foundation and of the IEEE, and a recipient of the Informs Lanchester Prize, the IEEE Stephen O. Rice Prize, the IEEE Kobayashi Award, and the ACM Sigmetrics Achievement Award. Shyam Parekh received his Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley in 1986. He is currently an Associate Adjunct Professor in the EECS department at UC Berkeley. He has previously worked at AT&T Labs, Bell Labs, TeraBlaze, and ConSentry Networks. He was a co-chair of the Application Working Group of the WiMAX Forum during 2008. He is a co-editor of Quality of Service Architectures for Wireless Networks (Information Science Reference, 2010). He currently holds 10 U.S. patents. His research interests include architecture, modeling, and analysis of both wired and wireless networks.