Course Description
ECE 3657 Broadband Communications Networks: Broadband networks are designed to support a variety of services and applications. This course will cover the basic principles and fundamental design issues relevant to broadband communication networks and expose students to current research problems. The topics will range from SONET and ATM switching to high-speed network control. Specific topics that will be addressed include characterization of network traffic and its implications on network design, traffic management, flow control and congestion control, including call admissions control, scheduling and policing, QoS-based routing and multicast routing. Networking technologies will reflect current research areas and implementations. The focus will be on high speed wide-area-networking (WAN) technologies such as Frame Relay (FR), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), and next generation Internet architecture. Methodology: lecture, readings from relevant literature, student presentations. Prerequisite: ECE 3511 or equivalent.
Top Engineering Schools Offering Equivalent Courses
Many of the top Engineering programs are currently offering courses that are roughly equivalent to this one. The fall under a variery of name, such as, 'Broadband Networks', 'Advanced Networks', etc.. A sample of top 25 Engineering schools offering similar courses follows:
Sample Week-by-Week Syllabus
This is a rough example of a possible syllabus organized according to the week of the semester. I think we should specify a minimum set of core requirements/objectives, but leave enough flexibility to allow each instructor to emphasize their areas of interest and the most current advances in the field. Because the technology changes so rapidly the technology components must be flexible.