Understanding Telecommunications and Lightwave Systems: An Entry-Level Guide

The up-to-date edition of the bestselling guide to the basics of telecommunications and digital technology

Understanding Telecommunications and Lightwave Systems presents a nontechnical treatment of how voice, video, and multimedia can simultaneously travel over today's evolving telecommunications systems. This updated Third Edition provides a comprehensive overview of the telecommunications field as well as a detailed introduction to the latest lightwave technology.

The author's examination of recent techniques and developing technologies in telecommunications includes:

• Third-generation cell phones with microbrowser capabilities
• Changes in the global PCS network
• Optical switching and transmission parameters
• Lightwave systems and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing
• A new chapter (Chapter 17: The Internet) that examines this multimedia structure and the network economy it has created
• Satellite communications, new transcontinental carriers, lightwave undersea systems, and other advances toward improving global communication

Understanding Telecommunications and Lightwave Systems is the perfect introduction for anyone whose work requires a fundamental understanding of current developments in telecommunications, as well as for students or inquiring readers who want an overview of telecommunications and the exciting technology of lightwave communications.

JOHN G. NELLIST led the development and implementation of fiber optic technology into the British Columbia telephone network as General Transmission Engineering Manager at Telus (formerly BC Telecom). He was appointed overall coordinator for the first field trial of a fiber optic transmission system in 1978 and presented one of the first papers on an operating fiber optic system in 1979 at the International Fiber Optic Conference.
With more than forty years of telecommunications experience, John Nellist has published and presented numerous technical papers and articles on the subject. Currently a consultant at Sarita Enterprises, Ltd., Nellist has also coauthored two books with Elliott M. Gilbert, Telecommunications Wiring for Commercial Buildings and Understanding Modern Telecommunications and the Information Superhighway.