Product Description

Telecommunication markets are characterized by a dynamic development of technology and market structures. The specific features of network-based markets, convergence of previously separate spheres and the complex task of market regulation put traditional theoretical approaches as well as current regulatory policies to the test. This book sheds light on some of the challenges ahead. It covers a vast range of subjects from the intricacies of market regulation to new markets for mobile and internet-related services. The diffusion of broadband technology and the emergence of new business strategies that respond to the technological and regulatory challenges are treated in the book’s 24 chapters.

Product Description
Whether you are an executive or sales manager in a networking company, a data communications engineer, or a telecommunications professional, you must have a thorough working knowledge of the ever growing and interrelated array of telecom and data communications technologies. From protocols and operation of the Internet (IP, TCP, HTTP, ...) and its access systems such as ADSL, and GSM... to the basics of transmission and switching, this newly revised resource delivers an up-to-date introduction to a broad range of networking technologies, clearly explaining the networking essentials you need to know to be a successful networking professional. Moreover, the book explores the future developments in optical, wireless and digital broadcast communications.

This second edition has been thoroughly updated to cover recent market and technological advances that are bringing about the integration of telecom networks and the Internet. It provides the latest on such cutting-edge technologies as dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM), wireless local area networks (WLANs), and GPRS and Bluetooth. What’s more, the book offers a clear explanation of the operation of each Internet protocol. In addition to being an all-in-one reference for networking professionals ranging from sales managers to network engineers, this book is a suitable introduction for students of telecommunications and data communications networking. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Only covers "skin deep" explaination
Strong points:

This book covers a quite complete issues of all telecommunication world. The author seemed put a quite effort in writing this book. I think he collected and read a lot of references to build up the book. Also, this book is design for everybody (especially entry levels) in telecommunication industry. The book is written in order, start from PSTN to data communication and private network.

As a non-American, he emphasized international telecommunication issues as always as he could, especially the interconneting between North American and European systems. This, I think, could open and broaden some American readers' view of international telecommunication issues.

Weak points:

I do not think that the author knew exactly every issue he brought up. Several quite important issues were left unanswered. Another thing that although this book covers a quite complete telecommunication issues, the explainations are sometimes "skin deep". I think this emphasizes that the author is not really an expert in his field. I think he just read issues from some references and put them in the book without effort to answer or solve. I think this should be obvious from the book dimension. There is no way that such a small book could cover a lot of explanations to every telecommunication issues.

My recommendations:

I think this book is more suitable for a quite reference rather than a book to read for a search of complete understanding. If you need a book that covers a complete fundamental telecommunication knowledge, I suggest that you read "Voice & Data Communications Handbook" by Regis J. "Bud" Bates and Donald W. Gregory.

telecommunication
network engineerin

telecommunication
network engineerin

telecommunication
network engineerin ... Read more

Product Description
Intended for network planners and systems engineers, this book provides information on ATM performance issues. It presents practical methods and simulation models useful in understanding and co-ordinating ATM networks and includes insights into protocols, reactive and preventive congestion control mechanisms, virtual paths and virtual circuits, traffic characteristics of new applications, bandwidth allocation and switching requirements. ... Read more

Product Description
This new volume updates the groundbreaking analysis of its first edition in 2002, when the EC common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services had just entered into force. So much has changed in the intervening years that that this new edition bears little resemblance to its predecessor, with every chapter either extensively altered or entirely new. It remains, however, the most detailed and comprehensive overview available of the application of the EC Treaty's competition rules in the markets for telecommunications and audiovisual media, and of the applicable regulatory framework. In thirteen chapters, each contributed by one or more noted legal authorities in the field, the second edition of EC Competition and Telecommunications Law covers the full range of EC telecommunications law across all major areas of both institutional and substantive law, both on the international and EC levels, including the following: State aid; the merger control regulation; justification for sector-specific regulation in EC competition law; network access; authorizations and privileges; and mobile telephony. Relevant EC media and communications law and relevant aspects of EC competition law are dealt with in detail. While some chapters focus on competition law, others deal primarily with sector-specific regulation. There is practical guidance throughout on procedural matters, alongside analysis of the substantive provisions. Well-known in its first edition, this thoroughly revised and updated version continue to be vital reading for practitioners, in particular those specializing in European competition law and for company and in-house lawyers who are seeking advice on how European law affects their business. As a detailed analysis of the basic legislative and regulatory framework of European telecommunications law, it will be an invaluable reference work for lawyers, judges, regulators, and policymakers in all the EC Member States, as well as for students and teachers of European law. ... Read more

Product Description
Now in its third edition, the ground-breaking Artech House bestseller "SIP: Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol" offers the most comprehensive and current understanding of this revolutionary protocol for call signaling and IP Telephony. Essential reading for anyone involved in the development and operation of voice or data networks, the third edition has been significantly expanded with brand new chapters on SIP security, services in SIP, presence and instant messaging, and Peer-to-Peer SIP. The book explains how SIP is a highly-scalable and cost-effective way to offer new and exciting telecommunication feature sets. From an examination of SIP as a key component in the Internet multimedia conferencing architecture...to a look at the future direction of SIP, practitioners get the knowledge they need to design 'next generation' networks and develop new applications and software stacks. This title is suitable for telecommunications/wireless engineers and professionals, professors and students whose work involves voice or data networks and the Internet multimedia architecture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Happy customer
This is the first time I bought books from Amazon.
Prompt delivery, much faster than I expected. The disappointment is that the book cover is dirty!
The content is excellent, exactly the info I am after.

A pick for any communications engineering library
SIP: Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol is a pick for any communications engineering library at the college level. It appears in its third edition and provides details on call signaling and IP telephony, and has been expanded with numerous new chapters covering peer-to-peer SIP, ABNF and XML, and other details key to telecommunications network development and SIP uses in Internet architecture.

Best available primer on the subject
I'm not an engineer, but I've got a lot of telecom experience.The second edition of "SIP: Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol," delivers on the title.Engineers and programmers can look to the text as a good starting point, but will want to go the IETF for more serious stuff.Still, the text provides sample SIP messages and deconstructs SIP message flows.The non-technical reader can still understand the protocol and its uses, and make more informed business decisions (strategy, marketing, product management, finance or M&A).I evaluated all the other titles available from Amazon.com before purchasing and reading this one, and I am convinced this was the best selection available.

Very complete...
Not a how to guide, but definitly a complete review of the SIP specification. It gives a complete description of the protocol to the point where you can actually implement the protocol.

This is reference book to keep (as opposed to some computer books that you can trash after a few years because they are no longer relevant).

This book will teach you enough about the SIP protocol so you will know how to position the protocol in your architecture, and start implementing!

good book
This book is very complet to understand SIP protocol. I found an answer for all my questions. ... Read more

Product Description
Be a part of the nanotechnology revolution in telecommunications

This book provides a unique and thought-provoking perspective on how nanotechnology is poised to revolutionize the telecommunications, computing, and networking industries. The author discusses emerging technologies as well as technologies under development that will lay the foundation for such innovations as:
* Nanomaterials with novel optical, electrical, and magnetic properties
* Faster and smaller non-silicon-based chipsets, memory, and processors
* New-science computers based on Quantum Computing
* Advanced microscopy and manufacturing systems
* Faster and smaller telecom switches, including optical switches
* Higher-speed transmission phenomena based on plasmonics and other quantum-level phenomena
* Nanoscale MEMS: micro-electro-mechanical systems

The author of this cutting-edge publication has played a role in the development of actual nanotechnology-based communication systems. In this book, he examines a broad range of the science of nanotechnology and how this field will affect every facet of the telecommunications and computing industries, in both the near and far term, including:
* Basic concepts of nanotechnology and its applications
* Essential physics and chemistry underlying nanotechnology science
* Nanotubes, nanomaterials, and nanomaterial processing
* Promising applications in nanophotonics, including nanocrystals and nanocrystal fibers
* Nanoelectronics, including metal nanoclusters, semiconducting nanoclusters, nanocrystals, nanowires, and quantum dots

This book is written for telecommunications professionals, researchers, and students who need to discover and exploit emerging revenue-generating opportunities to develop the next generation of nanoscale telecommunications and network systems. Non-scientists will find the treatment completely accessible. A detailed glossary clarifies unfamiliar terms and concepts. Appendices are provided for readers who want to delve further into the hard-core science, including nanoinstrumentation and quantum computing.

Nanotechnology is the next industrial revolution, and the telecommunications industry will be radically transformed by it in a few years. This is the publication that readers need to understand how that transformation will happen, the science behind it, and how they can be a part of it. ... Read more

Product Description
Written by the seasoned telecommunications training experts at Hill Associates, this book provides you with a step-by-step introduction to the industry, and includes practical hands-on tips and techniques on implementing key technologies. Covers emerging topics such as optical networking, wireless communication, and convergence, and contains blueprints that help bring the technology to life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Not for Beginners
I read the book and I was lost inside all those details and subtitles that the author goes through trying to stuff so many technical terms without really explaining the concepts of the main technologies for the "Beginners" as the book title promises. I expected more from this book when I read the title, the index and the reviews above.

real, down to earth...guide
I just started to read this book. Very good book...I have few books on TCP/IP... and Telephone Infrastructure..If you want to know more about Telephone networking, and protocols...look no further...

Aquaintance to the world of telecommunication
It is idle time for understanding a management will allow you to accustom to a developing area of telecommunications quickly. Written by skilled experts of company Hill Associates - the leading company on preparation of technical experts in the field of telecommunications, this book contains the technical information necessary for understanding and application of key technologies.

best intro to voice and data communications
If you only can read one book on the subject, this is it.
Written by experts in the field of computer networking and telco engineers it gives clear explanation of POTS infrastructure and data networking fundamentals, including the internet architecture. A lot of pages are devoted to "dying" technologies, such as X.25, ATM, and frame relay. Hot topics such as TCP/IP and Ethernet don't get enough coverage in my opinion. Even so, the book deserves 5 stars because even though it may not have everything, it does cover a lot and it does it well and with some sense of humor. There is no "filler" in this book. Besides, other books on the subject are ether too light (Dodd and Golenievsky), too technical (Freeman andMinoli) or
too wordy and biased towards telco point of view (Bates and Horak)
I must say I liked Horak's "Communications systems and networks" too -- it has a lot of complimentary and interesting details, historical notes and is written in a warm and loving style. I recommend you to read it before Hill's book if you are really interested in telecommunications. ... Read more

Product Description
Straightforward, systematic approach for designing reliable dc power systems for telecommunications

Here is a must-have resource for anyone responsible for designing, installing, and maintaining telecommunications systems. The text explains how to design direct current (dc) power systems that operate at nominal voltages of 24 and 48 volts dc, use lead-acid batteries, and are installed in public network telecommunications systems and other exclusive-use environments. Rather than train readers to design systems by rote, the author gives readers the skills and knowledge to perform systematic analyses to make the best choices based on several economic, operational, electrical, and physical considerations.

Written in a straightforward style that avoids unnecessary jargon and complex mathematics, the text covers all the essentials of dc power systems for telecommunications:
* Detailed descriptions of the seven major system components: Rectifier/charger System, Battery System, Charge Bus, Discharge Bus, Primary Distribution System, Secondary Distribution System, and Voltage Conversion System
* Detailed descriptions include design equations, reference tables, block diagrams, and schematics
* Design procedures to help readers select the most appropriate power system elements, such as buses, wiring, overcurrent protection, rectifiers, and batteries
* Application of the American National Standards Institute's telecommunications industry standards and other relevant standards, practices, and codes
* Strategies for dealing with voltage drop in distribution and battery circuits as well as guidance for sizing circuit wiring to meet voltage drop and current rating requirements
* In-depth discussions that focus on the types of lead-acid batteries used in telecommunications and their applications


Throughout the text, examples demonstrate how theory is applied to real-world telecommunications systems. Some 330 illustrations and more than 100 tables are also provided to help readers visualize and better understand complex systems. Design and application examples and accompanying solutions help readers understand the design process and use their new skills. In summary, engineers and technicians in the telecommunications industry will find all the resources they need to design reliable dc power systems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book for both novices and experts
This is really a break-though in the telco world. Prior to this you were limited to telcordia and other libraries that spread this information out in obscure working groups and memos. Not only does this have a lot of the information covered in the other handbooks (which are much more expensive), its main value is in its ability to communicate the basics. Why should we worry about tension on bolts, why we should use a cable of a certain diameter? What should that cable be made of? Really, kudos to Mr. Reeve. This is an ode to the DC power plant, which is a work of art that most people never see unfortunately. ... Read more

Product Description
Here is the first book to present a unified discussion of protocols that treats both voice and data networks. It emphasizes quantitative performance education of telecommunication network systems. Of interest to electrical engineers and computer science professionals working with networks, data communication and distributed systems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Makes MCSE, ECNE or Sun certification a joke.
This is the real engineering book to consider and understand Networks. Youmay need to find a key for all the solutions as they are very hard tounderstand. A upper level of statistics is taken for granted before youaddress this book. ... Read more

Product Description
This new book explains how telecommunications networks work. It uses straightforward language supported by copious block - schematic diagrams so that non-engineers and engineers alike can learn about the principles of fixed and mobile telecommunications networks carrying voice and data. The book covers all aspects of today's networks, including how they are planned, formed and operated, plus next generation networks and how they will be implemented. After an introductory chapter on telephony, the book briefly describes all of today's networks - PSTN, mobile, cable television, the Internet, etc. - and considers how they interconnect. Individual chapters then consider the principles, technologies and network structures relating to transmission, circuit switching, signalling and control, data (including voice-over-IP) networks, and mobile networks. The important subject of numbering and addressing for telephony and IP is then covered. The book concludes with a chapter designed to pull everything together, considering architecture, quality of service and performance, operations, network evolution and next generation networks.

Also available:

Telecommunications Quality of Service Management - ISBN 9780852964248
Radio Spectrum Management, 2nd Edition - ISBN 9780852967706

The Institution of Engineering and Technology is one of the world's leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. The IET publishes more than 100 new titles every year; a rich mix of books, journals and magazines with a back catalogue of more than 350 books in 18 different subject areas including:

-Power & Energy
-Renewable Energy
-Radar, Sonar & Navigation
-Electromagnetics
-Electrical Measurement
-History of Technology
-Technology Management
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Finally, I can make sense of my telecom guys!
I do technical work in a large call center, and not a week goes by that I don't find myself reaching for this manual to figure out what the phone guys are saying.

It also makes strangely entertaining reading, a la Eric Raymond's New Hacker's Dictionary...the editor does a good job of adding context where needed, and is entertaining while doing it.Thus, I find myself reaching out to find out what a "resporg" is, and getting carried away in all this other cool stuff.

Highly recommended not only for people who work with telecom folks, but for general techie types - - network, computer, or jack-of-all-trades.

The best telecom dictionary around
Having worked in telecommunications for over 20 years, and having seen many different telecom textbooks and dictionaries, I can say that hands down, Newton's Telecom Dictionary is the best telecom dictionary around. The author does an excellent job of explaining both the technical side and the business side of telecom, and he does an excellent job of keeping the dictionary up-to-date. Each year 500 to 1,000 new definitions are added to the dictionary, and existing definitions are tweaked to keep them current or to improve them in some other way. I like this ongoing commitment. Another interesting thing about this dictionary is that it shows the role and impact of telecom and networking in specific industries, government, the military, human history, and society. And, as an extra little treat, the author sprinkles humorous entries here and there in the dictionary, which make for nice entertainment when one comes across them. Oh yes, the price is excellent, too. In spite of the book's necessarily steadily increasing page count (the book now contains nearly 25,000 definitions), the author has managed to keep the price the same or about the same, year after year after year, which tells me that the author is conscientious about keeping the book affordable. For telecom old-timers and newbies alike, this is the dictionary to get.

Newton's Telecom Dictionary
I bought this book for my son who works in the Telecom business. He was very happy to get it and has told me almost every week how much he has used it. He carries it in his work truck and has even had other employees ask to use it.

Newton's Telecom
As a telecom professional with 30 years of experience, this book is always at my desk.There are just too many acronyms and terms to keep them all in your head.Harry Newton also provides great tips, history and insight which would span many other reference books in his concide disctionary.

A must have for someone in the telecommunications industry.
A must have for someone in the telecommunications industry.

Once again we see technology advancements after technology advancements... ... Read more

Product Description
"A ‘must’ for anyone involved in the practical aspects of the telecommunications industry."
—Choice, on the Third Edition

A major new edition of a leading reference on telecommunication technology

Through its three previous editions, Roger Freeman’s Telecommunication System Engineering has become a must-have reference on telecommunication networks. Since the third edition appeared in 1996, telecommunications has evolved exponentially, growing more multifaceted in its forms and applications, and more pervasive in everyday life.

This new edition of Telecommunication System Engineering answers the challenges of today’s telecommunication industry by presenting a technical overview of telecommunication networks from a system viewpoint, demonstrating how disciplines can interact to achieve desired goals. As in previous editions, Freeman covers all the concepts necessary for a complete understanding of the design of practical telecommunication networks, whether they carry voice, data, facsimile, telemetry, video, or any combination of these.

Approaching the information in a systematic and interactive way, the book:

• Uniquely covers both North American and ITU-T practice
• Discusses the dramatic changes that have taken place in the industry since the last edition
• Includes new chapters on important hot topics such as asynchronous transfer mode, broadband technologies, network management, voice over IP, and connectivities of PCs via servers and networks
• Describes the evolution of cellular radio from a mobile telephone service to mobile multimedia digital multi-access capability

Thoroughly up-to-date and comprehensive, Telecommunication System Engineering, Fourth Edition is an ideal reference or self-study source for telecommunications managers, technicians, engineers, and other practicing professionals as well as for advanced students in telecommunications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Very detailed
A very detailed book on telecommunications. Spends a lot of time and in-depth on theory and the mathematical side of the industry. Very good book. Just wish it explained concepts and systems at the beginning in an introductory level.

Remarkable Depth - Great One-stop Solution
Working in the telecommunications industry, I have become all too familiar with texts that skimp on topics important to the reader and are skewed toward the authors' interests. Freeman does an excellent job of balancinghis coverage and providing a book with meaningful depth. I was looking tothe book simply for its ATM and SS7 chapters, but the other chapters werevery good also and I ended up learning a lot of new things. This book is amust have for someone looking for a one-stop solution to telecommunicationseducation. I can't wait to see if all of Freeman's books are thisinformative and well written.

Good Book
Very comprehensiv

Comprehensive, "some" editing problems
Just looked at my review from a coupla days ago and I think I was a little harsh on the editing. There are some spelling and grammer errors in the text for sure, however, I think "numerous" was a little extreme. I must have just been having a bad day when I wrote that.

comprehensive, poor editing job
This book covers most of the important topics of modern telecommunication systems. This is an imposing task because of the rapidly changing nature of the field and the wide scope of the topic. Freeman does a good job of capturing the main points of things like POTS, networks, and cellular and providing refernces for further study. I use this book to get a top level understanding of things, then, use the references provided at the end of each chapter to dive in deeper. The book succeeds well on this front. The numerous spelling and grammatical errors show that the text was hastily edited (if at all), this detracts somewhat from the overall quality of the text. ... Read more

Product Description
Project Management for Telecommunications Managers is aconcise reference work covering important aspects of projectmanagement. It explains many key concepts, in layman's terms, forengineering managers, project managers and other professionals workingin the telecommunications environment. This presentation is consistentwith many of the processes recommended by the certification body forproject managers, the Project Management Institute; however, thematerial expands on the guide by elaborating on the application of theprocesses in telecommunications projects. The book covers concepts andapplications applicable to all telecommunications related areas. Toolsfor planning, organizing, tracking and managing projects are provided.The author has also included actual examples of varioustelecommunications projects from wireline and wireless providers,equipment vendors and component manufacturers to illustrate concepts.Important information for working across departmental and functionalunits and various organizational structures are also included. This book is highly recommended for project managers and project teammembers who work on projects in the telecommunications environment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lacks basic formatting structure.Bad Reading Overall
I bought the book because it's related to telecom project management since I couldn't find any other book on this topic and it had good rating. This book is not cheap and has lot of mispelled words, awkward paragraph structure, copy and paste of paragraphs from one to chapter to another. Overall, not recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
There has been a revived interest in Raman amplification due to the availability of high pump powers and improvements in small core size fibers. Two general categories of Raman amplifiers exist: distributed and discrete, also known as DRAs. They improve the noise figure and reduce the nonlinear penalty of the amplifier, allowing for longer amplifiers spans, higher bit rates, closer channel spacings, and operation near the zero dispersion wavelength. DRAs are already becoming commonplace in most long-haul networks. Consequently, Raman amplifiers should see a wide range of deployment in the next few years. This edited monograph is written by leading experts in this area and is the first book entirely devoted to Raman amplification. Three sections include extensive background on Raman physics, descriptions of sub-systems and modules utilizing Raman technology, and a review of current state-of-the-art systems. Technologies presented include applications for long-haul and ultra-long-haul submarine, terrestrial, soliton, and high-speed systems. This book will be a resource for scientists and optical engineers in optoelectronics, fiber optics, telecommunication, and optical networks. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume offers a solid foundation for understanding the most important devices used in the hottest areas of electronic engineering today, from semiconductor fundamentals to state-of-the-art semiconductor devices in the telecommunications and computing industries. Kevin Brennan describes future approaches to computing hardware and RF power amplifiers, and explains how emerging trends and system demands of computing and telecommunications systems influence the choice, design, and operation of semiconductor devices. In addition, he covers MODFETs and MOSFETs, short channel effects, and the challenges faced by continuing miniaturization. His book is both an excellent senior/graduate text and a valuable reference for practicing engineers and researchers. ... Read more

Product Description
This work shows in detail the emergence and consolidation of U.S. commercial broadcasting economically, politically, and ideologically. This process was met by organized opposition and a general level of public antipathy that has been almost entirely overlooked by previous scholarship. McChesney highlights the activities and arguments of this early broadcast reform movement of the 1930s. The reformers arguedthat commercial broadcasting was inimical to the communication requirements of a democratic society and that the only solution was to have a dominant role for nonprofit and noncommercial broadcasting. Although the movement failed, McChesney argues that it provides important lessons not only for communication historians and policymakers, but for those concerned with media and how they are used. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Here come the Martian Marxists
and I wouldn't be surprised if they're riding on their Martian bike.

This book is a sad joke and a frivolous, ideologically-poisoned waste of thousands of hours of archival research. McChesney, whose reputation as the academic pundit King of All Media is based on the rickety foundation of this misbegotten work, imagines himself to be doing muscular, old-school political economy, and this, I surmise, is what licenses him to write his narrative in a hermetic cultural vacuum. But that's messed up on both counts.

What do I mean by cultural vacuum? Click through to the "Search Inside" function and enter "jazz" as a search term. You'll get exactly two hits. Two. This is . . . problematic for a book about broadcasting in the Jazz Age. That's because people never shut up about jazz and its implications for broadcasting. Jazz, you see, signified at the time as evil set to melody: it was gangsta rap, death metal and punk rock rolled into one. But McChesney doesn't want to talk about that, because all of his bourgeois reformers were on the wrong side of history where jazz was concerned. But if you were against commercialism in 1928 through 1935, you were also against jazz, because it was catchpenny commercial garbage in league with the Devil, as opposed to the philanthropically-subsidized cultural spinach that it is today.

Now run a search on vaudeville: One solitary hit.

Now run a search on Tin Pan Alley: Zip. Zero. Nada. Sweet Fanny Adams. Not a sausage. Mayor McCheese has never heard of America's gargantuan, world-conquering, popular music industry, not its signature weapon of conquest, which we would call payola but was then known as song plugging.

This means that his book is worthless as a work of political economy, because vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley were major cultural and economic institutions that exerted unparalleled influence on the evolution of radio programming. You may as well write a history of cooking without reference to farming and fire.

Other things missing from McChesney's dire saga about the corporate theft and desecration of the airwaves: Programs. There are four hits for Amos 'n' Andy(virtually unavoidable) but otherwise the Bobcat really doesn't want to go near any specific radio shows, especially not popular ones, because that would raise all kinds of difficult questions about the social class of radio listeners and their cultural preferences. For McChesney, early programming was bluntly divided into two simple categories: "commercial" (bad) and "educational" (good). This is an ideal way to spin things if you're looking to persuade academics that you're preaching true Gospel. Guess which class of programs they like better.

There are no actual listeners in this book. "The people," on whose behalf McChesney presumes to speak, are not consulted. Which is strange, because early radio listeners were a vocal and opinionated lot who wrote zillions of letters of protest and praise about what they were hearing, and sent them to magazines, newspapers, federal officials and broadcasters. McChesney isn't going to touch this deep and vital vein of evidence, because not one word of it supports his melodramatic story of mustache-twirling top-hatted villains stealing the family farm of the airwaves.

I've got lots more epistemological muck to rake here, but I gotta go to work now. Later.

History Repeats
Robert McChesney has become one of our leading media critics and activists, and in this debut book from 1993 he was already adept at exploring why concentrated corporate media is an affront to democracy. Granted, at the time of this book McChesney was not yet wearing his democratic (small "d") politics so prominently on his sleeve, and was more concerned with the historical forces that have shaped the media mess that we're in now. While media reform is a struggling, yet growing, movement today, it was a force to be reckoned with the last time media policy was a source of widespread public concern in this country. That was way back in the 1928-1935 period, when the federal government was still trying to figure out how to regulate the airwaves, resulting in the 1934 creation of the FCC. At the time, it would have still been possible to create a true public broadcasting system in America, with benefits for civil society and social justice, as well as for-profit companies who would be encouraged to use the system wisely. But instead we ended up with the current advertiser-driven lowest-common-denominator system, in which mega-conglomerate corporate profits are the main (and usually the only) concern for federal media and telecommunications policy.

McChesney provides plenty of evidence that this emergence of a corporate media system was not inevitable and was instead the result of government deliberations in which fairly well-organized non-profit activists (especially religious, educational, and labor groups) were unable to resist an onslaught of self-serving rhetoric and influence peddling by the big media companies. Here we can see how history really does repeat itself, and knowledgeable readers will be painfully familiar with the false arguments about democracy and freedom that big media used then and now. The only problem with this book is that while it is intricately and impeccably researched, the straight chronological history and voluminous government documents used by McChesney result in a very repetitive and unexciting read. McChesney's later works are more passionate and readable, notwithstanding their increased polemics. Here the monotonous reading is not entirely rewarding for the interested scholar until an excellent concluding chapter, in which McChesnay lays out how much we can learn from this deceptively dry political history, and finally delivers on the book's weighty title. [~doomsdayer520~] ... Read more

Product Description
The #1 book on wireless communications has been completely updated

World recognized wireless authority William Lee delivers all new in-depth engineering coverage for data services, Wi-Fi, 3G, and much more, just in time for the rebounding wireless industry.

Includes specifications for all major wireless systems, including cdmaOne ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very good reference
This book can be used for both business and academia. It really contains up to date information. ... Read more

Product Description

Optical Fiber Telecommunications V (A&B) is the fifth in a series that has chronicled the progress in the research and development of lightwave communications since the early 1970s. Written by active authorities from academia and industry, this edition not only brings a fresh look to many essential topics but also focuses on network management and services. Using high bandwidth in a cost-effective manner for the development of customer applications is a central theme. This book is ideal for R&D engineers and managers, optical systems implementers, university researchers and students, network operators, and the investment community.

Volume (A) is devoted to components and subsystems, including: semiconductor lasers, modulators, photodetectors, integrated photonic circuits, photonic crystals, specialty fibers, polarization-mode dispersion, electronic signal processing, MEMS, nonlinear optical signal processing, and quantum information technologies. Volume (B) is devoted to systems and networks, including: advanced modulation formats, coherent systems, time-multiplexed systems, performance monitoring, reconfigurable add-drop multiplexers, Ethernet technologies, broadband access and services, metro networks, long-haul transmission, optical switching, microwave photonics, computer interconnections, and simulation tools.

Biographical Sketches

Ivan Kaminow retired from Bell Labs in 1996 after a 42-year career. He conducted seminal studies on electrooptic modulators and materials, Raman scattering in ferroelectrics, integrated optics, semiconductor lasers (DBR , ridge-waveguide InGaAsP and multi-frequency), birefringent optical fibers, and WDM networks. Later, he led research on WDM components (EDFAs, AWGs and fiber Fabry-Perot Filters), and on WDM local and wide area networks. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of the IEEE/OSA John Tyndall, OSA Charles Townes and IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Awards. Since 2004, he has been Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tingye Li retired from AT&T in 1998 after a 41-year career at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs. His seminal work on laser resonator modes is considered a classic. Since the late 1960s, He and his groups have conducted pioneering studies on lightwave technologies and systems. He led the work on amplified WDM transmission systems and championed their deployment for upgrading network capacity. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He is a recipient of the IEEE David Sarnoff Award, IEEE/OSA John Tyndall Award, OSA Ives Medal/Quinn Endowment, AT&T Science and Technology Medal, and IEEE Photonics Award.

Alan Willner has worked at AT&T Bell Labs and Bellcore, and he is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California. He received the NSF Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House, Packard Foundation Fellowship, NSF National Young Investigator Award, Fulbright Foundation Senior Scholar, IEEE LEOS Distinguished Lecturer, and USC University-Wide Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a Fellow of IEEE and OSA, and he has been President of the IEEE LEOS, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/OSA J. of Lightwave Technology, Editor-in-Chief of Optics Letters, Co-Chair of the OSA Science & Engineering Council, and General Co-Chair of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics.

For nearly three decades, the OFT series has served as the comprehensive primary resource covering progress in the science and technology of optical fiber telecom. It has been essential for the bookshelves of scientists and engineers active in the field. OFT V provides updates on considerable progress in established disciplines, as well as introductions to new topics. [OFT V]... generates a value that is even higher than that of the sum of its chapters.
Herwig Kogelnik, Vice President Adjunct, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent

... is a comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the latest research advances and development trends in the field, while upholding the highest standards of scholarly exposition and practical perspective. The wealth of material on innovative technologies and advanced applications will serve as an important and timely information resource ... for the advancement of telecommunications world-wide.
Leping Wei, CTO, China Telecom

Lightwave systems constitute the nervous system of the industrial world and continue to evolve as innovations are introduced with enormous economic impact. The editors have very skillfully brought together authoritative chapters written by well known experts, encompassing new technologies that are enabling the rapid advances to their commercial deployment. This is a "must-have" book ...
Henry Kressel, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus

Anyone ... will want to have a copy of this latest edition ... which carries on the tradition of bringing together a wonderful collection of authors, world-renowned experts all, to discuss the most important areas of this rapidly changing technology. ... this volume has evolved to include, not only updates of previous topics, but also considerably more discussion of networks and network services.
Donald B. Keck, Corning, Inc. (retired)

Much has happened since the last edition. ROADM-based metro networks are being widely deployed, optical monitoring is becoming essential, new modulation formats are enabling efficient bandwidth utilization, and deployed FTTH has 1 Gbit/s shared rates. All these ... are expertly reviewed by an impressive set of authors, each highly active, well-known and respected. In all ... a timely, highly valuable, well-written and comprehensive view presented by the world's experts.
Rod C. Alferness, Chief Scientist, Bell Labs Research, Alcatel-Lucent

* All the latest technologies and techniques for developing future components and systems
* Edited by two winners of the highly prestigious OSA/IEEE John Tyndal award and a President of IEEE's Lasers & Electro-Optics Society (7,000 members)
* Written by leading experts in the field, it is the most authoritative and comprehensive reference on optical engineering the market ... Read more

Product Description
The Best Strategies for Investing in the Power Industry

The face of the utilities industry has changed dramatically since the deregulation laws were passed. And, in many ways, this has affected no one more than investors in this industry. How can you, as a sophisticated individual investor, take advantage of the recent changes and avoid the pitfalls while navigating this new terrain?

Written by industry expert Roger Conrad, Power Hungry can help you profit from the enormous potential in this field.Power Hungry details for the investor:

• How energy deregulation works
• The role of new technology in the utilities industry
• The aftermath of utility deregulation
• The most effective criteria for picking the best utility stocks

As the only book focused on investing within the energy, communications, and water industries, Power Hungry offers a comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of the utility industry, allowing you to make the most profitable investing decisions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good for a General Business and Historical Perspective, Bad for Investment Purposes
Those of you looking to invest in the energy, (electric) utility or other critical service areas would do well to heed this advice: all of these industries deal in commodities, and all of them require participation in financial markets (large capital spending requirements and active involvent with derivatives to manage delivery of the commodity at various points in time), so it behooves you to look very closely at the management and the debt levels of these outfits.Read this book to obtain a good, general business perspective, and more important, a historical perspective of these industries, but also read a book like Buffettology by Mary Buffett and David Clark so as to avoid making some very big mistakes.

I say this because the author tries to sell the reader on the growth potential in energy, telecommunications and water, especially in developing countries (without, at the same time, disclosing that the median, and not the average, incomes in many of these nations generally precludes the vast majority of these inhabitants from ever having access to these essential services).The author also tries to sell the reader and potential investor on the merits of size and diversification (from the standpoint of generating capacity within a firm and from participation in activities spanning two or more regions or countries), but the author does not disclose the risks associated size or diversification as they relate to the energy and natural resources businesses in particular.The reader/potential investor should note that Calpine Corp. had size going for it, but is now in Chapter 11, and who can forget Enron, which was heavily diversified and a global heavy-hitter, but now is the nation's most spectacular bankruptcy.You could argue that Calpine failed because of its near total exposure to California, and you could also argue that Enron failed because of its fraudulent accounting practices, but one thing is certain: at the level of play for these companies(which runs into the hundreds of billions easily), even a small mis-step can lead to disaster.

Warren Buffett has publicly referred to derivative instruments as 'financial weapons of mass destruction'.The use of derivatives in these industries has received absolutely no treatment in this book.The next great financial catastrophe is highly likely to involve derivatives and a critical service, so potential investors would do very well to scrutinize this aspect of any crtical services purchase.

In sum, this book did a very good job of making clear how the energy, telecom and water services got to be the way they are, and gave an accurate snapshot of the key factors at work in each industry.However, the information in this text represents about one third of the information you need to know in order to invest successfully in any critical service.Written in 2002, because of the turbulent nature of the critical services industries, the contents are already dated for the most part, and are only of use from a historical standpoint.In the future, the author would do well to write an update to this book which would explore the ever more complex regulatory and financial landscape, and also include some coverage on the waste disposal industry, another critical service that has promise as well.

Power Update
A good, well written update on the power industry.Conrad is balanced, shows no bias but is obviously concerned about the future power situation.20 years of underinvestment, in his opinion, will start taking their toll and it is up to us to rethink this and take a long, hard look at the changes taking place in the industry.

Good for the investor and a must read for the Analyst (if there are any left) on Wall Street.

Power update
A very well written, balanced and unbiased update on our power situation.

The author is not trying to "push" his viewpoint but rather attempts to show us where we are and what we should be thinking about to start us on the road to a new power infrastructure.

Highly recommended for the individual and the Wall Street Analyst.

Power-FUL insights
Essential reading for anyone interested in how to take advantage of the changing forces shaping the energy and telecom utility industries. Well-written & interesting. I'm a subscriber to Conrad's excellent newsletter, which I also recommend.

A Great Book for Consumers and Insiders
Conrad is one of the top independent analysts of the essential services industry--utilities, pipelines, telecom, etc. Here he steps back to give readers the historical context of deregulation in the power industry, how it came about, what it's implications are, and how to benefit from it.

Part investment book, part history book, part current events book, it does a great job integrating all these varied aspects into an interesting, edifying read. For anyone interested in what's going on with the most necessary services within our economy this book satifies on numerous levels. ... Read more

Product Description
Deregulation was a political buzzword of the early 1980's. The Reagan Administration came to power on a platform dedicated to getting government "off the backs of the people." Deregulation promised to lower inflation, raise productivity, and reverse the sagging fortunes of American industry.And proponents declared deregulation morally right because it constituted a rollback of the arbitrary power of the state in favor of individual initiative and liberty.But the actual politics of deregulation, including the momentous breakup of AT&T, had already turned out to be far more complex than this rhetoric suggested.In The Irony of Regulatory Reform Horwitz examines the history of telecommunications--both telephone and broadcast--to build a compelling new theory of regulation. Against the backdrop of modern theories of the state, he presents a sweeping survey of the history of regulation in America, delineating three distinct periods of regulatory genesis and, correspondingly, three discrete types of agencies.Horwitz shows the underlying irony that while anti-regulation rhetoric was aimed at the so-called "social" regulatory agencies, in practice it has been the "economic" agencies that have been deregulated, often with vehement opposition from the industries affected.Within the context of this broader theory, telecommunications is a fascinating industry to study, because it determines the character of our marketplace of ideas, because it has been an arena of great technological transformation, and because of its fundamental role in anchoring the so-called "information age." Horwitz unveils the complex mosaic of forces--economic, political, legal, and technological--that undermined the traditional regulation of telecommunications and precipitated deregulation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Afficianados will want to underline every word.
If you are interested--really interested--in regulation of the telecommunications industry, this is one book you should own.Thorough and perceptive history of the relationship between regulators and the telecommunications industries--not only Ma Bell but the FCC, the cable cartel, bandwidth are subjected toHorwitz's piercing analysis. Great background reading for Gilder to judiciary hearings on CSPAN2! ... Read more