Business Data Networks and Telecommunications (5th Edition)

Ray Panko

1 Terrible Book
This book is awful. The revisions to it are updated, but to follow the book in order is nearly impossible. This is a text book being used at a college. The information in this book is scattered and makes learning the concepts difficult. I do not recommend this book for use at colleges/universities. There has to be another book out there that allows users to learn the concepts and terminology in an easier fashion.

2 Six Stars!
I've recently completed a course using this textbook. Excellent!!! It has been a long time (if ever) since I have actually enjoyed reading a textbook. I feel it should be mandatory reading for all authors and potential authors who will ever feel the need to publish a textbook for undergraduate level work in a technical field.

Most of the many corrections on the online corrections page are minor and insignificant (i.e. typos) and would probably go unnoticed by the reader. With press deadlines in technologies being what they are, it is fully understandable. The choice to include those corrections (a) gave me a sense of security in that it demonstrated the author's thoroughness and (b) proves that you don't have to cut a new edition of your work every six months (which can be quite annoying for anyone who is looking to get a specific edition for class).

I was pretty much convinced that it was impossible to design and publish a textbook in a technical field of a caliber such as this. In general, technical authors either confuse the reader by over complicating the layout and material or they put the reader to sleep by being overly shallow and overly redundant. This is not the case for this book. In the words of Goldilocks, this one is "just right". I strongly recommend it to anyone, whether they have a class requirement for it or not.

3 Great Book, using in my PSU networking class
This book is great, it starts from the beginning of the networking age and goes through all the newest technologies and ideas about networking. Covers the business aspects of networking, wireless, how TCP/IP works and pretty muct the 802 standars. Book covers everything, this is one book I won't be selling back. A really good reference book for the basics of networking and rules to follow as well when getting into the networking field.

4 Great Book, but Check Author's Web Site for Corrections
I just finished a semester with this book. Loved it! I didn't think I'd every say that about a textbook, but this one really makes it easy to remember the material. It does so by quizzing you at the end of every section instead of just waiting until the end of the chapter. I found that it significantly improved my retention rate.

I will however caution you that there are errors present in many of the chapters. The errors I came across looked like they were mainly due to poor editing and validation of the technical material. I STRONGLY recommend that you go to the author's web site as he quickly posts any and all corrections by chapter.

For ... dollars, you'd think that the book's publisher, Prentice Hall, would have reviewed the book a bit more thoroughly before publication.

Errors aside, this is a great book that will mostly likely improve further with the next edition.

5 Great book -- clearly written by a Teacher
Not only does this book cover network essentials, it is presented in a way that actually promotes learning (!) While this may seem an obvious goal, the author of this book clearly puts great effort into presenting the information in a meaningful way (most books on this subject lack this care). I'd highly recommend this to students, or even to practicioners who would like a refresher or general reference on data communications.

6 Great Overview of Data Communications
We used this book in my graduate MIS course, and it was a great tool for learning the basics about data communications and networking. Many of my classmates thought that Panko did a great job of explaining data comm concepts, whether it was something as simple as an ethernet LAN, or as complex as an ATM network. Everyone in my class seemed to enjoy the text (both highly technical students with a background in data comms, and students who were learning the material for the first time).

The book is designed to give readers a general overview of a subject, then drill down into the details in later chapters. He starts with the basics (layers, encapsulation, protocols, etc), and then gets into how networks are built from the ground up. Panko has included numerous modules at the end of the book if you want to learn even more about a specific topic.

The author has also put together slides for each chapter which were very helpful in explaining difficult concepts, or emphasizing certain chapters in the text. If you can get a copy of them, I highly recommend using them.

I recommend this book for anyone looking for a way to learn a lot about data communications and networking. This book covers the gamut from LAN to WAN technology, packet switching, ATM networks, frames, IP addresses, etc. It can also serve as a tremendous reference if you need to review a topic later on down the road.

7 Text Book for an undergraduate course in Bus Telecom
I find this book to be highly informative. It is certainly a good text book for business school undergraduates who have had no exposure to telecommunications.

I would have liked the case studies to be included in the text book.

However this is not a text book for Graduate students or computer science/engineering students.

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