Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely not for beginners-Even our TA said so
Review: For beginners-Even our TA said it is not a good book. Half of my class in EE hate this book - as our TA said - "it tries to cover too many stuff but without enough details". Our professor assigns homework from the back of the chapter, and we are having hard time finding answers and hints from the book even after reading the chapters over and over again - because the book doesn't have enough detail on how to solve problems.Maybe it is good for someone who know the topic well. But I absolutely think this is not good for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely not for beginners-Even our TA said so
Review: For beginners-Even our TA said it is not a good book. Half of my class in EE hate this book - as our TA said - "it tries to cover too many stuff but without enough details". Our professor assigns homework from the back of the chapter, and we are having hard time finding answers and hints from the book even after reading the chapters over and over again - because the book doesn't have enough detail on how to solve problems. Maybe it is good for someone who know the topic well. But I absolutely think this is not good for beginners.
Rating: 
Summary: An encyclopedia of Datacom information
Review: For the stated audience -- academics and self-study professionals -- it is hard to envision a better single volume study of datacom principles. Divided into five primary parts (overview, data communications, WANs, LANs, and Networking Protocols), it can provide excellent first course source material to provide a general overview of datacom principles and techniques. Note that, with as much information as being presented, the book is much more useful as a course text for study than for casual reading. However, it covers sufficient areas to be useful as a reference for the data & computer communications professional. Additional information is maintained by the author on his web site which provides more up-to-date information than can ever be maintained in a printed volume.
Rating:
Summary: An encyclopedia of Datacom information
Review: For the stated audience -- academics and self-study professionals -- it is hard to envision a better single volume study of datacom principles. Divided into five primary parts (overview, data communications, WANs, LANs, and Networking Protocols), it can provide excellent first course source material to provide a general overview of datacom principles and techniques. Note that, with as much information as being presented, the book is much more useful as a course text for study than for casual reading. However, it covers sufficient areas to be useful as a reference for the data & computer communications professional. Additional information is maintained by the author on his web site which provides more up-to-date information than can ever be maintained in a printed volume.
Rating: 
Summary: A very broad picture of networking with latest technologies.
Review: I don't buy books normally. But after reading thru halfway, here I'm trying to get one desparately....!!
Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: I found this book interesting. It explores the mathematics behind waves and frequencies and transmissions, encoding, etc... You should have some college calculus to be really comfortable with this book or have a friend who is into math. Probably a good textbook, but may be frustrating if you are self-studying for some reason (if you don't know a lot about math, that is). But the math concepts are only introduced as they are needed, and you will need to find other places to learn the stuff you need there. I also noticed that some of the questions at the end of the chapters have answers that are nowhere to be found in the book. Strange, that. I guess it assumes you have an internet connection. Much, if not all of the material in this book can be found on the internet in greater detail free of charge. But that still does not mean that the book is useless. It depends on how much the purchase price means to you. What this book does is gives you a framework that helps you know what to study, and what the major subject categories in this field are. And in some circles, it is very valuable that it also gives you the mathematical background behind what is going on. I would imagine you could skip this one if you know what you need to learn. If the purchase price is daunting, you would probably be just as well off just using the table of contents of this book as the "list" of things to know about networking. This book appears to be some sort of standard in the colleges around this country and the world. Even though it may not fit your learning style, or you may not be big on math, there are countless folks using this book so it might be helpful in that way. It gives you an overview of the field. A big picture, so to speak. In a way, this book, like many textbooks, ask the question of how important is your need to understand what other people are doing, even if it is not your specialty or your area of expertise. This may be an excellent book for a manager of a large organization who wants to get an overview, WITH MATH, of the current networks and communications systems.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent tutorial on networking
Review: If you have some digital bacjground and want to learn about networking technolog, this book is the
way to go....It is an excellent tutorial on networking
Rating:
Summary: well organized, right amount of depth
Review: Stallings went a bit into signal theory and some people don't like it. There is no book that can satisfy everyone, or answer everyone's every question. To me, it is a good technical book as long as (1) it justifies its price by having a reasonable amount of content, cohesive with the title and editorial reviews. (2) It has a good balance between rigor and ease of reading. In my opinion, this book satisfies both of the above, and it happens that I like the fact that it goes into signal theory. It is a good textbook for student who wants a short cut to communication fields without too much pure classroom math or EE stuffs, although practising engineers may not even need that limited amount of math.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect book for beginners
Review: Takes you from cero to a quite deep understanding in data communications. Gives just the right amount of technical information. If you are a data communnications professional, dont even think of it, otherwise this book is just perfect.
Rating:
Summary: A good book overall but it doesn't go into the mathematics
Review: The book gives an overall view of the computer networks and describes different kinds of networks till the vert roots . But what is lacking in the book is a probabilistic analysis of different protocols and their relative advantages and in what kind of situations . As these are the tools which a network designer would require if he is confronted with the design of a network .
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