ECE 610 - Winter 2017

ECE 610 - Broadband Communication Networks

Instructor

Professor Xuemin (Sherman) Shen
Room: EIT 4155
Telephone extension: 32691
Email: sshen@uwaterloo.ca

Lecture schedule

Thursdays 11:30 to 14:20 in EIT 3151.

Office hours

Thursdays 9:00 – 11:00.

Objectives

  1. To understand the fundamental concepts in communication networks;
  2. To understand the principles and practice of designing, analyzing, and operating networks.

Course Description

This is an introductory graduate course on broadband communication networks. The course is to present the main facets of broadband communication networks, i.e., network design, performance analysis, and protocols. The focus is on the concepts, the protocols, fundamental design principles, and performance analysis. Topics include: circuit switching, packet switching, multiplexing, protocols and layering, digital transmission, error detection and re-transmission, medium access control, routing, TCP and UDP, flow control, congestion control, etc.

Prerequisite

ECE 316, 358 or equivalent

Grading

  • Assignments count for 15%
  • There will be one project (to be done individually or in a group of two students) that will count for 25% of the grade.
  • There will be NO midterm examination. The final examination will count for 60%

Text

Course lecture notes and handouts.

Reference Books

  1. Kumar, D. Manjunath, and J. Kuri: Communication Networking: An analytical approach, Morgan-Kaufman (Elsevier), 2004, ISBN 0-12-428751-4
  2. D. Bertsekas and R. Gallager, Data Networks, Prentice Hall, 1992.
  3. J. F. Kurose, K. W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, Third edition, Addison-Wesley, 2004.

Course website

Please see the course website for more details.

Outline

  1. Introduction: definition of networks, circuit switching, packet switching, network architecture, protocol and layering
  2. Probabilistic description of network and queuing analysis
  3. Physical layer: digital transmission principles and technologies
  4. Data link layer: Error detection and correction, re-transmission, medium access control
  5. Network layer: IP addressing, fragmentation, routing algorithms, etc.
  6. Transport layer: TCP and UDP, flow control and congestion control
  7. Application layer: HTTP, DNS, FTP, synthesis: a day in the life of a web request