Local Access Network Technologies

This book presents an overview of local access networks and discusses new emerging technologies. Underpinning much of the evolving communications technology is the local access itself, both in traditional form of copper pairs but increasingly too through the use of new fibre, radio and copper systems.

This concise book provides an objective introduction to local area networks - how they work, what they do, and how you can benefit from them. It outlines the pros and cons of the most common configurations so you can evaluate them in light of your own needs. You'll also learn about network software, with special emphasis on the ISO layered model of communications protocols.

Considering the key evolutions within the access network technologies as well as the unprecedented levels of bandwidth demands by end users, this book condenses the relentless research, design, and deployment experience of state-of-the-art access networks. Furthermore, it shares the critical steps and details of the developments and deployment of these emergent technologies; which is very crucial particularly as telecommunications vendors and carriers are looking for cost-effective ultra-broadband “last-mile” access solutions to stay competitive in the “post bubble” era. The book is written to provide a comprehensive overview of the major broadband access technologies and deployments involving internationally recognized authors and key players. Due to its scope and depth, the proposed book is able to fill an important gap of today’s available literature.

Local Area Networks: An Introduction to the Technology, Second Edition is intended for those who want to become more familiar with local area networks (LANs) without facing the challenge of a 400-page text. The goals of the book are to give prospective LAN users or purchasers familiarity with the concepts involved and to provide a head start for reading more detailed texts. Since LAN product offerings are constantly changing, a deliberate attempt has been made to emphasize the general principles, operating characteristics, and problem areas of LANs, rather than cite specific product examples.

Offers readers an authoritative, in-depth exploration of the local area network. This book incorporates the latest technology, protocols, techniques, and hardware and software employed in computer networking.

Provides an introduction to LAN management issues while focusing on many of the latest LAN technologies and systems. The author examines Novell Netware and other popular LAN products, including Banyan Vines and StreetTalk; client/server computing; multimedia on LANs; and the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model. Chapters include a preview, summary, key terms, review questions, problems and exercises, and references. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Optical networks have moved from laboratory settings and theoretical research to real-world deployment and service-oriented explorations. New technologies such as Ethernet PON, traffic grooming, regional and metropolitan network architectures and optical packet switching are being explored, and the landscape is continuously and rapidly evolving. Some of the important issues involving these new technologies involve the architectural, protocol, and performance related issues. This book addresses many of these issues and presents a birds eye view of some of the more promising technologies. Researchers and those pursuing advanced degrees in this field will be able to see where progress is being made and new technologies are emerging. Emerging Optical Network Technologies: Architectures, Protocols and Performance provides state-of-the-art material written by the most prominent professionals in their respective areas.

This book is supposed to serve as a comprehensive and instructive guide through the new world of digital communication. On the physical layer optical and electrical cabling technology are described as well as wireless communication technologies. On the data link layer local area networks (LANs) are introduced together with the most popular LAN technologies such as Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, and ATM as well as wireless LAN technologies including IEEE 802.x, Bluetooth, or ZigBee. A wide range of WAN technologies are covered including contemporary high speed technologies like PDH and SDH up to high speed wireless WANs (WiMAX) and 4th generation wireless telephone networks LTE. Routing technologies conclude the treatment of the data link layer. Next, there is the Internet layer with the Internet protocol IP that establishes a virtual uniform network out of the net of heterogeneous networks. In detail, both versions, IPv4 as well as the successor IPv6 are covered in detail as well as ICMP, NDP, and Mobile IP. In the subsequent transport layer protocol functions are provided to offer a connection-oriented and reliable transport service on the basis of the simple and unreliable IP. The basic protocols TCP and UDP are introduced as well as NAT, the network address translation. Beside transport layer security protocols like SSL and TLS are presented. On the upmost application layer popular Internet application protocols are described like DNS, SMTP, PGP, (S)FTP, NFS, SSH, DHCP, SNMP, RTP, RTCP, RTSP, and World Wide Web.