Course Number:

Credit Hours:

4

Course Title:

Local Area Networks and Interworking

Course Description:

Presents fundamental principles on the design and analysis of local area networks (LANs) and internetworking strategies. The traditional definition of a LAN is that it provides high-speed transmission within a limited geographic scope, and ownership is associated with the organization that uses and manages it. An alternative definition is that a LAN provides the physical and link-layer access point to an internetwork. LAN technology provides electrical, physical, and signaling specifications, as well as the rules for transmission on various shared or dedicated media. Today LANs can operate at speeds in the gigabits per second and may span great distances. Internetworking imposes a higher logical-layer abstraction that provides the protocols, algorithms, and devices for interconnecting a mesh of heterogeneous LANs and intermediate networks into an Internet. Guides students through the evolution of LAN technology, from the challenges addressed by engineers designing first- and second-generation LANs to present and future advances. Emphasizes basic algorithms and protocols used for media access control and performance evaluation. Discusses internetworking concepts related to the protocols used in the present-day Internet.