The Essential Guide to Telecommunications FROM THE PUBLISHER
The essential guide for all non-technical telecom users -- now completely updated!
The latest edition of a worldwide best-seller -- over 100,000 in print!
Extensive new coverage of optical networking, globalization, digital convergence, speech recognition, and 3G networking.
Reader-friendly coverage! Internet, IP networking, wireless, xDSL, cable modems, ATM, frame relay, SONET, DWDM, and more!
Every business decision-maker needs to understand telecommunications: its costs, risks, and breakthrough opportunities for competitive advantage. With The Essential Guide to Telecommunications, Third Edition you can -- even if you have no technical background at all. Leading consultant Annabel Z. Dodd covers all the fundamental concepts you need to understand the industry, and make smarter buying decisions. This new Third Edition has been updated with up to the minute coverage of today's most critical issues, including the rapid globalization of telecommunications, breakthrough optical networking technologies, the latest progress towards digital convergence, speech recognition, next-generation 3G wireless networks, and much more. Dodd covers the powerful new roles played by IP networking in telephony, streaming media, and the state-of-the-art in computer-telephony integration, PBXs, Automatic Call Distributors and other call center technology. Along the way, you'll master all the basics of telecommunications, including: the differences between analog and digital signals; what bandwidth is; why protocols and architectures matter; the role of the public network; the continuing evolution of the Internet; and more.
SYNOPSIS
Crystal-clear explanations of what bandwidth is, types of digital cellular services, what multiplexing and compression are. Offers crucial insights into the fast- changing competitive landscape.
FROM THE CRITICS
Jack Woehr - Electronic Review of Computer Books
The Essential Guide to Telecommunications, Second Edition, by Annabel Dodd, enters my workspace serendipitously. I'm currently contracted to US West (or "US QWest" as the office wag has taken to calling it), so I'm in some position to benefit from the perusal of this volume and to evaluate its content. Executive summary: It's a professional and accurate volume suitable to be presented to novice employees their first day on the job at any company whose core business involves stuffing bits up the line.
There's metal in this book. At a high level, Dodd provides overviews of the myriad of empowering technologies that are heaped together into the telecommunications grid of this continent and our planet. The discussion ranges over switched services, dedicated services, signaling, T-1 to T-3, ISDN, DSL, Frame Relay, ATM, SONET, lines, modems, set-top boxes, the Internet, virtual private networks, PCS, wireless and mobile, satellites, convergence (of telephone and PC, not harmonic), and a good deal more.
There's also wetware interest here. Politics are inseparable from technical evaluation of the network. Legislatures and regulatory bodies dictate to the carriers in the name of preserving the public interest within institutions that inherently possess tremendous powers over access. The Essential Guide contains sections on "Local and Long Distance Providers,""The Bell System Prior to and After 1984," "Evolution from CAPs to CLECs," and a whole chapter on "Local Competition and The Telecommunications Act of 1996." Dodd allows herself a few judicious observations into social implications, such as the effects that merger mania and "cream skimming" are likely to have on universal service. Al Gore even makes a couple of appearances in quotation.
The Essential Guide is pretty current. The map of the surviving RBOCs correctly shows US West's 14-state region, accompanied by the (now erroneous) legend "Purchase by Global Crossing, Ltd. pending)." Which goes to show you that the industry holds surprises even for the experts.
The glossary is adequate in relation to the book, though the bibliography is a little too sparse for a second edition. There's no paucity of telecommunications literature; having delved (for instance) into SONET in sufficient detail to note sideband signaling, the author might have deigned to cite a few tech pieces on this and other protocols, rather than merely list eight other telecom overview books.
Dodd seems to have progressed from industry to academia, rather than the other way around. Her professional bio, (former marketing manager at Bell Atlantic, current faculty member at Northeastern University) suggests that her insights may have been arrived at empirically rather than in the ivory tower. Her book accurately imparts the freighted technical context and dynamic economic and social ambiance of the telecommunications industry in these exiting times from the perspective of a well-informed and technically astute insider. It's a good read.
Booknews
Provides an understanding of telecommunications for those with no technical background. Overviews technologies, explains the structure of the telecommunications industry, and profiles industry segments and vendor types. Technologies important in competition for local calling, high-capacity communication, and Internet access are clarified. Intertwined with technical explanations are examples of how the various vendors interconnect their networks. For nontechnical people working in telecommunications, and for people responsible for the administration of telecommunications services for their organizations. The author is affiliated with Northeastern University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
AUTHOR DESCRIPTION
Annabel Z. Dodd, adjunct professor at Northeastern University's state-of-the-art engineering program, teaches courses in Telecommunications and Data Communications for the Non-Technical. Formerly a marketing manager at NYNEX and Telecommunications Manager at Dennison Manufacturing, a Fortune 500 company, she has consulted with major corporations and institutions in the Greater Boston area for over a decade. She publishes the newsletter Dodd on the Line.
ACCREDITATION
ANNABEL Z. DODD is an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and has taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Formerly in marketing at New England Telephone and Telecommunications and manager at a Fortune 500 company, she consults widely and gives seminars at major corporations and institutions worldwide. The Massachusetts Telecommunications Council honored her as the Professor of the Year 2000.
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