Abstracts: “The Irwin handbook of Telecommunications”

                The book is divided into five parts, as were previous editions, corresponding to major divisions  in telecommunications equipment . Chapter  one is an introduction to voice and data. The remainder of Part One is devoted to concepts that are common to the industry, In Part One ,we discuss voice and data fundamentals, pulse code modulation, outside plant, structured wiring ,access technologies , local area network principles, and the other building blocks of telecommunication network.

                  Part Two covers switching. The part begins with a discussion of signaling , including new protocols Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and  ENUM , which are new since the last edition, and hold considerable promise for the future. A chapter on the public switched telephone network follows, discussing how it works and the quality requirements that IP must achieve to support voice. Two chapters follow to explain in overview how local and toll switches and integrated services digital network (ISDN) function. Circuit switching has been at the heart of the telephone industry for more than a century and retains stability and service quality that packet technologies cannot yet provide. We devote a chapter to it. Part Two ends with a discuss of soft switches, which are a new generation of IP switches than serve advanced IP networks.

                 Part Three covers transmission equipment , Separate chapters discuss the fundamental technologies of fiber optics, microware radio, satellite transmission, infrastructure and is arguably the most important development in the industry’s history. It displaced long-haul microwave, but that technology is becoming more important than ever with an emphasis on communications mobility. Customer demand is fueling a host of new wireless  services and protocols that operate in the microwave bands and are receiving a great deal of attention. Video is also becoming a vital internet access service, and more. The new hybrid fider- coaxial cable architecture enables cable to compete with conventional telephone system.

               Part Four disusses customer premise equipment. As with the public telephone network. Customer premise switching is evolving to IP. We begin this part with a discussion of station equipment. Followed by a chapter that discusses features that customer premise switching equipment supports. Chapters follow on conventional digital switching and the newer IP switching. We next discuss automatic media distribution systems, which are evolving from the older automatic call distribution systems. These respond to customer demands for contact alternatives besides the telephone. Other chapter discuss voice processing, electronic messaging, and facsimile.

                Part Five pulls together the building blocks we have discussed in the earlier chapters into completed and functioning telecommunications networks. This part illustrates the tremendous variety of alternatives that are available and discusses how and where they are applied. We begin this part with the discussion of enterprise networks, which is a blanket term covering the networks organizations use to link the enterprise. Following that, other chapters cover metropolitan area networks, wide area data networks, frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode, and IP data networks. The IP charter discusses mutli-protocol label switching(MPLS), which is evolving into a platform for handling multimedia applications over IP networks. We discuss testing and network management systems and how they are evolving to enable humans to cope with the increasing complexity of modem networks.

               The final chapter in the book looks  a head a few years with a view of where telecommunications technology is headed.