The Irwin Handbook of Telecommunications, 5e

I am the officer technical lead for a 50-person military intrusion detection operation. I read Mr Green's book to get a broader understanding of the telecom world, of which network intrusion detection occupies a small but highly visible part. This immense book (774 pages of text, plus URLs, acronyms, and a glossary) addressed nearly every topic I had encountered reading communications magazines, speaking with the telecom industry, and researching the Web. While no single book can provide the depth needed for truly understand a specific technology, Mr Green's work provided the foundation for future research. For example, after getting the context for SS7, I may now buy "Signalling System #7, 3rd Edition" by Travis Russell. I didn't give the book five stars, as I was not completely comfortable absorbing the material. This is the sort of book that requires you to read the whole book twice in order to appreciate the early chapters. References to technologies like ATM or frame relay in the first half of the book make much more sense after reading chapters dedicated to those issues. If Mr Green had given me slightly more to grasp while reading the early material, or had perhaps organized the book with the telecom novice in mind, I may have given five stars. Nevertheless, if you're looking for one-stop shopping for telecommunications, I highly recommend this book. Don't be fooled by the "business" classification on the dust jacket -- this book is a technical volume, with protocol headers and other details included. Great work Mr Green!

The Irwin Handbook of telecommunications is both technical and readable. It is an excellent text for telecommunication students,managers, and vendors. The field of telecommunications is rapidly evolving.In the future ,jobs and fortunes will be won and lost by those who apply winning technologies. Consider this book a score card. You cannt tell the players without a scorecard.

I read this book about a year or so ago, and I have been looking for it since then. It is the best book on telecommunications I have ever read. It goes into great depth of Switching, SS7, VMBs, PBXs, Centrex, ISDN, etc. Definitely a good buy.

This book covers all of the existing and developing technologies in voice and data communications.