Cisco Unified Presence Fundamentals provides an excellent overview.
Books
There are a lot of good books on the subject of fiber optics. The vast majority of them are highly technical and written by and for engineers or physicists. When it comes to books written for technicians the pickings are slim.
Videoconferencing is one of the most rapidly developing technologies and certainly an attractive and compelling network application. The benefits include enhanced communications and collaboration, increased productivity, reduced travel and associated costs, and shortened time to decision.
Passive Optical Network (PON) network access technology was the subject of intense research for more than a decade before it finally emerged from the labs in 1998 in the form of a set of physical layer specifications for an ATM-based PON. That first specification was ratified by the ITU-T within the G.983.1 standard.
This book appears to contain everything you could possibly want to know about Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) operations, signaling and management, excepting perhaps the individual bits in packet and label headers. There is so much here that it’s a good place to start a major study of the topic. Master this book and nobody will be able to bluff you when the talk turns techy.
The case for IPv6 is compelling, including increased address space, ease of autoconfiguration and tight integration of mobility options. As IP networks evolve there is no doubt it eventually will replace IPv4. In fact many Asian nations are deploying it now, in large part to alleviate pressure on v4 address space caused by explosive growth of their mobile wireless networks.
There is a lot of buzz around fixed mobile convergence (FMC) these days. As is often the case with a hot new concept, tens if not hundreds of industry experts have written many thousands if not a few million words on the subject, explaining the fundamentals and elaborating on the nuances.
Densely written, this volume evenly balances the theory with the practice. The first half gets deep into the technical details, from the physical construction of fibers and couplers to the light signaling formats and and data frames that carry information. The second half looks at the practical aspects, with a thorough chapter on computing the power budget and optimal input power for an optical link.
I am not in the habit of reviewing established books but some are worthy and have a long shelf life. Cabling certainly fits that description. It is an excellent resource for IT managers and supervisors who need to understand copper and fiber cabling architectures, standards, project design principles, installation methods, test and troubleshooting techniques, and certification criteria. Although it is not a how-to installation and repair guide, many will benefit from the detailed explanations of cables, pathways, wiring closets, components, tools and testers.
Not long ago the title of this book might not have made much sense. Now with WLANs practically everywhere, the tide of VoIP couldn’t avoid the Wi-Fi connection. If your wired network will be dealing with VoIP you’ll eventually see that traffic on the air, too.
I’m quite certain that between them the nine authors (Chandra, Dobkin, Bensky, Olexa, Lide, Dowla, Nasisuri, Moore and Poor) know a lot about wireless networking, but I doubt they know it all. I do know that after reading much of this book I don’t know it all.
Webster’s New World Telecom Dictionary by Ray Horak is comprehensive with more than 4,600 terms essential to a clear
and comprehensive understanding of voice, data, video and multimedia communications system and network technologies, applications and regulations. Although the book is a technical dictionary, Horak‘s plain-English, commonsense style yields definitions that are as thoroughly understandable to the business professional or student as they are to the electrical engineer. It is thoroughly researched, objective, accurate, and includes just about every essential term, abbreviation, acronym, contraction, initialism and portmanteau you might encounter in the telecom and datacom domains.
The subject of VoWLAN is a tough one to get your mind around as it involves the convergence of two evolving technologies, VoIP and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). VoIP is rapidly replacing circuit-switched voice in the public switched telephone network (PSTN), where most of the kinks have been worked out, and is also making inroads into the premises.
Security is near the top of everyone’s worry list these days and likely will be so far into the future. The telecommunications domain struggles with security issues constantly and much attention is focused on IP networks. The relatively recent emergence and rapid rise in popularity of VoIP has heightened those concerns considerably. Voice over IP Security, by Patrick Park, can help.
The case for teleconferencing is compelling, or so some would say. Arguments in favor include reduction or even elimination of travel time and associated expenses. Increases in productivity follow naturally and contribute to faster decision-making, decreased time-to-market and ultimately, increased competitiveness. Arguments against tend to focus on the loss of personal face-to-face contact which can be very important in the development and maintenance of strong business relationships. Not to be forgotten is the cost and complexity of the conferencing systems.
Telecommunications and Data Communications Handbook by Ray Horak is a survey of telecom and datacom technologies and services. The book begins with basic concepts and definitions and marches through media and voice, data and video systems, networks, standards and protocols. Also covered are broadband LAN, MAN and WAN technologies such as 3G, 802.11g/n, ADSL, BPL, CWDM and DWDM, PON and WiMAX.
Since the turn of the century a good deal of interest in the telecommunications domain has been focused on broadband wireless access technologies, and much of that on mobile wireless including both 3G (3rd Generation) cellular and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access).
