CPSC417 - Computer Communications

Mon, Wed, Fri, 3:00pm-4:00PM, in Scarf Building room 100 (TBA)

Spring 2002, Section 201

Professor: Alan Wagner (wagner@cs.ubc.ca)

Office: CICSR/CS 321

Course Overview

This course is an introduction to computer communications. We'll cover topics like layered protocols, packet switching, data communications, data link controls, virtual circuits, datagrams, network design, flow and congestion control, satellite and local area networks. We will be concentrating more on the practical concepts, rather than on theoretical analysis, and we will concentrate on general principles, rather than particular equipment or technology.  We'll use TCP/IP in many of the examples.

Prerequisites

CPSC315 and one of STAT241 or MATH302.

Textbook

The required text for this course is:

Computer Networks, by Larry L Peterson & Bruce S. Davie.

It is an excellent book although it does cost quite a bit, so look out for second-hand copies. I'll be following the book quite closely throughout the course. Many of my lecture slides are taken directly from the slides provided by the authors.   The book does not cover network management and only gives a very cursorily analysis of protocols. 

Lecture Format

I will post the slides from each class after the lecture.  I will attempt to put a general outline of the slides on the web before class. For each lecture, I'll also try to have a couple of in-class questions to discuss. These questions will be very similar to those on the midterm and final exam.  An important component of the class is student participation  in discussions about design.

I will make heavy use of slides and materials from previous offerings of the course.  Including material prepared by Peter Smith, Son Vuong, Alan Hu (who taught it last year) and finally slides available from the authors of the book Peterson and Davis.

Assessment

The grading for the course will be done in approximately the following way:

The midterm will most likely be on Wednesday 13th of February, during the normal lecture time.

Assignments

There will be 4 assignments in this course. The first (theoretical calculations) must be done individually, and the remaining three (programming) must be done with a partner. The expected topics and due dates will be:

Teaching Assistants

You won't see much of the TAs in this course, but they'll be marking the assignments. They will most likely hold office hours closer to the due dates.

Course Web Page

We’ll be using WebCT for this course. You can find the pages at:

http://orange.mywebct.ubc.ca/SCRIPT/cpsc_417_term2/scripts/serve_home

Your username will be the same as your UNIX username, and your initial password is your student number. The web pages will contain:

• Lecture slides (at least a few days before the class)
• Assignment details
• A bulletin board for asking questions about the assignments.
• Other documentation that you might need

Proposed Lecture Outline

We will cover all of Chapters 1 to 5.  We will then skip and do Chapter 8 and a bit of Chapter 9.  I may spend a bit more time on Chapter 2 and include some additional information on Optical network technologies.  Where possible we will try to introduce more recent topics on wireless, IPv6, and newer application needs such as Video and P2P.

I may also be able to organize a guest lecture by somebody in industry.