ECSE-6660 Broadband Networks

Goals

There is considerable discussion in the media about the "Information Superhighway," a global network allowing ubiquitous access to very high data rate, integrated services such as video on demand, multimedia and virtual reality. In this course we will investigate many of the critical issues in the design of a high data rate, integrated services network.

Particular emphasis is placed on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks and the Broadband ISDN architecture.

Offered

Spring, odd-numbered years.

Prerequisites

ECSE-4500, Probability for Engineering Applications, or equivalent.

ECSE-4670, Computer Communication Networks or some previous exposure to basic networking concepts and elementary queueing theory.

Instructor

Prof. K.S. Vastola

Textbooks

"An Introduction to Broadband Networks," A.S. Acampora, Plenum, NY, 1994, ISBN 0-306-44558-1.

"ISDN and Broadband ISDN with Frame Relay and ATM," 4th Edition, William Stallings. Published October, 1998 by Prentice Hall Engineering, Science & Math Copyright 1999, 542 pp., Cloth, ISBN 0-13-973744-8.

References and Textbook Errata

Reference list in postscript.

Most recent errata list (in postscript) for the text by Acampora.

Spring 1999 Class Hours

Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00 pm to 5:20 pm.

Guest Lecture Notes

Notes from James Manchester's guest lecture:
  1. Set 1.
  2. Set 2.
  3. Set 3.

Class Info

There is a website for the Stallings text.

Links to a variety of related websites can be found here and on the "Networking Monster Page" developed by Christopher W. Hamilton.

Old Midterm Exam

From 1994 is available here. Note that the figure for problem 2 is missing. The figure is just an 8x8 Banyan switch fabric (as in Fig. 3.10a in Acampora) flipped horizontally, i.e. the inputs are now the outputs and the outputs are now the inputs.

And from 1997 is available here.

K.S. Vastola / URL for this page = http://networks.ecse.rpi.edu/~vastola/bbn/