These are books which may supplement the notes and lectures for the ECE4253 course. They are listed here alphabetically by author. I have included some detail of each and where I have, from time-to-time, found especially good examples to bring to class.

Although this list is now rather dated, most continue to be useful if they can be found in the library.

Bud Bates and Donald Gregory, Voice and Data Communications Handbook
McGraw Hill, 1995 ISBN 0-07-005147-X

This reference begins with a well-detailed overview of telephone system design, traffic engineering, and the associated hardware. The latter part of the book covers general data communications through to broadband ISDN, ATM, and video conferencing.

Richard Blahut, Theory and Practice of Error Control Codes
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1983 ISBN 0-201-10102-5

This is a technical book giving a thorough coverage of the mathematics of error control coding. There is discussion of cyclic codes for burst error correction on page 114.

Uyless Black, The V Series Recommendations
McGraw-Hill, 1995 ISBN 0-07-005592-0
Table 5-32 ITU-T V Series Voice Band Modems (p108)
Appendix C Interfaces and Voice Band Modems: V.10 through V.34 (p192-3)

The official CCITT V-series recommendations cover many thousands of pages, dealing with standards for modems, data compression, and protocols, which are used throughout the world. The author of this 200 page summary is a prolific writer of communications books. The book provides an excellent summary and overview of this important series of recommendations. Contains a good summary of V.42bis compression, although modem standards stop at V.33 (14400 bps).

Uyless Black, TCP/IP & Related Protocols
McGraw-Hill, 1995 ISBN 0-07-005560-2 (350 pages)

The internet is based on TCP/IP, yet few books actually cover the underlying protocols. The preface reads "This book is written for the reader who is a newcomer to the TCP/IP suite, or a person who is interested in filling in some gaps about those protocols."

Uyless Black, Data Link Protocols
Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1993 ISBN 0-13-204918-X
Class example on typical Error Rates. pps 31-33

Primarily focused on synchronous data link protocols with an emphasis on HDLC.

Roger L. Freeman, Telecommunications Transmission Handbook
John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1998 ISBN 0-471-24018-4

The Fourth Edition of this extensive reference book is over 1200 pages thick. Contains many up to date topics such as digital cellular phones (PCS) and video data compression (MPEG2). Shares a readable style (and more than few pages in common) with Freeman's "Practical Data Communcations" (below).

Roger L. Freeman, Practical Data Communications
John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1995 ISBN 0-471-31021-2
EE4253 Textbook 1998-99

More of a reference book than a textbook (there are no end-of-chapter exercises), this 600 page work covers data communications "from ASCII to ATM" in greater detail than will be required in the classroom. Includes material on telephone engineering and satellite communications. Each chapter ends with a detailed reference list for further reading.

Appendix B features a useful list of Acronyms and Abbreviations

Richard Hamming, Coding and Information Theory
Prentice-Hall, 1980 ISBN 0-13-139139-9
Class example on "polynomials". pps 200-205

This very readable book was written by the inventor of the "Hamming code". In the preface, he (modestly) comments "I have followed custom in referring to Hamming codes and Hamming distance; to do otherwise would mislead the student and be false modesty." The book also contains a section on the ISBN number error detection scheme, as discussed in class.

Gilbert Held The Complete Modem Reference
Second Edition, Wiley Professional Computing, 1994 ISBN 0-471-0085-4

After lengthy descriptions of "how to remove the cover on your PC", this book finally goes into some useful detail about fundamental topics like "Relationship between dB/dBm and Peak-to-Peak Voltage" (Table 3.2), V-series modem specifications (Table 4.15), and both MNP5 and V.42bis compression techniques. The latter sections make this a worthwhile reference.

Gary McClain (Editor) The Handbook of International Connectivity Standards
A Van Nostrand Reinhold Book
Multiscience Press Inc, 1992 ISBN 0-442-30851-5

A readable compilation of writings forming "..a comprehensive guide to major connectivity standards...". Among the standards discussed are OSI, TCP/IP, X.25, Token Ring, Ethernet, and ISDN. Overall, quite a useful reference book.

William F. Potts, McGraw-Hill Data Communications Dictionary
McGraw-Hill, 1992 ISBN 0-07-003154-1

The preface reads "The goal of this book is to provide comprehensive definitions while avoiding the lengthy, detailed, subject-by-subject discourse that is the domain of the textbook". It follows that this book is, at best, a supplement to a more detailed text; however, it is often difficult to find this information all in one place. There is a useful summary of CCITT V- and X-series recommendations. There are ten pages devoted to definitions of various IBM 3270 Display Terminals...

Originally posted 02 OCT 98 - tervo@unb.ca
University of New Brunswick, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering