Data Networks

I bought this book at 2002, 10 years after the publishing. I read as text book of networkin protocol. Especially, slotted multiaccess and aloha system. My PhD paper was based on delay models in data networsk such as section 3. Thanks.

Written by two MIT masters, this is the best tech. book I have read, ever. I first read it slowly yet seriously in my first graduate year; now four years later, after obtaining my PhD in networking, I still discover new ideas or technical points (or some I just overlooked) out of the book, from time to time. Look back, I am amazed how precisely they commented on ATM when it was that hot. Also, as a 1992 book, it is amazing that the book was so up-to-date as the Parekh/Gallager results on WFQ were seriously discussed in Ch. 6, even before the results were formally published and eventually won IEEE paper awards. Today WFQ is one of the most well-known, if not the most well-known, algorithms in networking...For strict yet accessible treatment on flow control and routing, you can find no book elsewhere that can both illustrate the existing ideas and trigger/stimulate your own ideas...Well, I dare to say I did not find any single sentence in the book that I felt redundant/vague. Probably the only network book better than this one would be its 3rd edition, which unfortunately we do not know if/when will come out.Warning: if you don't like/appreciate rigorous math thinking, probably you can safely skip this book.

This is really the kind of book you would like if you are intersted in learning the fundemantals of data networks as well as if you are trying to understand the idea in the network optimization and network analysis and performance

This is definitely not a book for understanding the Internet routing protocols, plus its content is at least 10 years out-of-date. However, it provides a very nice treatment of mathematical modeling of various aspects of networks, from link layer to transport layer. This is rarely available in a "current" networking textbook. If you are interesting in this part, this is an invaluable textbook as well as a reference.

This book covers the very foundations of data communications for the design engineer. It contains some intense mathematics in some areas, but if you've had high quality college math (year of calculus and some engineering type math), you can handle it. The queueing theory, multiaccess theory (ALOHA to ethernet and beyond), and optimal routing theory are actually foundations for many aspects of data comm. If you're in datacomm and don't have a solid education in that area, this book is for you.