BKESGDTL.RVW   980319

"The Essential Guide to Telecommunications", Annabel Z. Dodd, 1998,
0-13-259011-5, U$29.95/C$41.95
%A   Annabel Z. Dodd andodd@lynx.dac.neu.edu
%C   One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ   07458
%D   1998
%G   0-13-259011-5
%I   Prentice Hall
%O   U$29.95/C$41.95 201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131
%P   251 p.
%T   "The Essential Guide to Telecommunications"

The target audience for this book is the non-technical worker in the
telecommunications industry.  That means mostly managers and
marketeers.

Since it is entitled "Fundamentals," part one seems to indicate that
this book is about telephone service, rather than telecommunications
in general.  Chapter one provides basic concepts and background
necessary for further exploration.  The material is clear and
readable, but lacks some organization.  In addition there are minor
errors; POTS is Plain Old Telephone Service" and baud defines a change
in signal state rather than describing a full cycle.; although Dodd
does avoid the usual error regarding the number of characters in the
ASCII definition.  For the intended audience this information is not
vital, but it does betray a weakness in the text.  The first part of
chapter two covers telephone sets, switches, and peripherals, while
the latter part looks at cabling.  Again, it would benefit from
reorganization and small errors, such as the explanation of single
mode fiber optic cable, are present.

Part two is an industry overview, at least for the United States. 
While it mentions most of the major vendors, chapter three seems to be
primarily centred around the 1984 breakup of AT&T.  Chapter four lists
a number of provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  A
rather pedestrian overview of readily available, and well known,
services is mixed with an insufficiently explained mention of data
bandwidth and out-of-band signalling in chapter five.

Part three looks at advanced technologies.  As might be surmised from
the foregoing, this is a particularly weak area in the book.  Chapter
six breezes through some standard bandwidth sizes, and then flies
through new technologies such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital
Network), ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), and SONET (Synchronous
Optical NETwork).  The material fails to explain such important points
as ATM's ability to carry both voice (with a guaranteed quality of
service) and data (efficiently "filling in the blanks"), or SONET's
management infrastructure and scalability.  Modems of various types
are listed in chapter seven.  The Internet is presented in somewhat
haphazard fashion in chapter eight.  Again there is a lack of analysis
leading to misinformation.  On page 194, for example, it is stated
that cable modems can result in privacy loss when, in fact, the
problem results from a combination of promiscuous network media, an
operating system with no security provisions, and a broadcast resource
announcement protocol meant only for extremely limited networks. 
Wireless service, in chapter nine, deals almost exclusively with
cellular telephones.

The aim and audience of the book is non-technical.  However, to be
useful the work should analyze and explain the implications of the
technology, if not the inner workings.  This volume does not match
such existing texts as Naugle's "The Illustrated Network Book" (cf.
BKILNTBK.RVW), Bates and Gregory's "Voice and Data Communications
Handbook" (cf. BKVDCHBK.RVW), or even "Newton's Telecom Dictionary"
(cf. BKNTTLDC.RVW).  While the strictly business content is not bad,
it is equalled by any number of references elsewhere, and will be of
no interest outside the US.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKESGDTL.RVW   980319