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VDDANTOA.RVW   980809

"Data Networking Overview and Applications", Cotton/Feldmeier/Davin/
Weinstein, 1996, 1-57305-057-1, U$1295.00
%A   Chase Cotton
%A   David Feldmeier
%A   Charles Davin
%A   Stephen Weinstein
%C   Room 3A184, 8 Corporate Place, Piscataway, NJ   08854
%D   1996
%G   1-57305-057-1
%I   Bellcore
%O   U$1295.00 +1-800-521-CORE +1-908-699-5800 fax: +1-908-336-2559
%P   239 min., 5 tapes, 260 p.
%T   "Data Networking Overview and Applications"

This package is also available in a larger "Data Networking Set" that
includes "Navigating the Internet" and "Local Area Network (LAN)
Overview Video."  (That set runs to a total of almost eight hours.)

Tape one is entitled "Data Communications Fundamentals."  It does
provide some basic conceptual information, but is missing several
important foundations, such as the idea of the bitstream and serial
communications.  It also spends time on related, but not completely
relevant, side issues such as MPEG (the Motion Picture Experts Group
standard for video storage and transmission) and detail of the ATM
(Asynchronous Transfer Mode) protocol that is inconsistent with the
other topics.

Tape two covers the physical level, dealing with signalling and
modulation.  However, a great deal of the material concentrates on
phone line engineering.  Once we do get to modulation itself, neither
frequency, amplitude, nor phase shift encoding get much of an
explanation, and there is a jump directly to a quadrature system.  The
tape closes on ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network).

Tape three looks at data services in the public network.  The "public"
part is important, since it means that the services are being provided
by the telco or carrier.  This restricts the control that the customer
has over the service, and the technical level needed to utilize the
service.  Therefore, this discussion, to be of use to the customer,
should concentrate on quality and type of service being provided.  To
a certain extent this is provided, noting which services are circuit
switched and which deal with packets.  However, much of the content
deals with issues of interest only to the carrier, such as congestion
management and the structure of SMDS (Switched Multimegabit Data
Service) frames.  The closest the tape comes to talking about
appropriate choice of services is in giving a graph of aggregate
bandwidth provided by the services.

Tape four introduces the Internet Protocol, or, at least, the IP
(Internet Protocol), ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol), and UDP
(User Datagram Protocol) standards.  Although the material is not
terribly detailed, it does cover the topics at a reasonably consistent
level.  The final tape is a significantly more detailed review of TCP
(Transmission Control Protocol).

In order to ensure that I was not being unduly biased, I also tested
this set with an audience of low level programmers who have had some
experience with data communications, but aren't specialists.  The
responses I got indicated that the tapes were elementary (this was a
pretty much universal reaction), had very low interest or production
values suitable for keeping interest, and that the information could
have been relayed much faster with the printed word.  Those who asked
the price were generally appalled (one said that his time, to view the
tape, was worth more than that), although one did note that it might
be useful as an introduction to new staff with no data communications
background.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   VDDANTOA.RVW   980809