CRC Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

Rating:
Summary: Strongly growing field
Review: Another definitive book of its field, by CRC. The telecom sector is vast and still growing strongly. This book was published in 2000, when in the US, the telcos, including a bunch of startups, went on a massive capital equipment spending spree, raising hundreds of billions of dollars to do so. The resultant fibre glut resulted in a big shakeout.

But now telcos are growing again. The book's chapters are still very pertinent. In fact, the Voice over Internet Protocol (Voip) appears more germane and more useful now than in 2000. The largest companies, like ATT, have pledged to bring out products based on it.(Partly to circumvent paying access charges to the Baby Bells.)

One thing that has helped since 2000 is that the intervening years have made the Internet more accessible, in terms of bandwidth, price and reach, throughout the developed world.

The technical issues discussed in the book are applicable worldwide. In no small part because the cost keeps falling rapidly, and the developing world promises huge growth.