Home Networking Basis: Transmission Environments and Wired/Wireless Protocols is a technical guide to the leading transmission media and communication protocols for in-home networking. It targets professional communication systems engineers who want or need to learn about the fields. It's definitely not for beginners without communications and engineering knowledge who want to interconnect communications and electronic devices in their homes.

Not enough quality books tackle this fast-growing area of networking (broadband Internet connections have particularly enabled residential networking). And, because home network types differ widely in terms of media, protocols, and implementation, it's worthwhile to discover their respective advantages and disadvantages. This book covers all types of networks specifically developed for home use, as well as those originally developed for enterprise but eventually used in home networks (for example, Ethernet or wireless LAN).

The text begins with reasons to build home networks for sharing communications and computing resources and for home automation and remote monitoring. The first chapters cover the different types of wiring in home environments and their related characteristics. The book then discusses in detail transmission media such as twisted pair, coax, electrical wiring, and radio waves. This part concentrates especially on the their transmission potential, including channel and noise models and channel capacity calculations.

The book's core thoroughly reviews each communications protocol implemented in home networks. Ethernet as a local area network, deployable in the home in mainly its low-speed forms (10/100 Mbits), is presented to the finest engineering details, accounting for almost a quarter of the book. Next, the book discusses home-network specifications beginning with wired: HomePNA 1.0/2.0 (over telephone wiring); FireWire (IEEE 1394); X-10, CEBus, HomePlug (over powerline wiring). These are mostly industry specifications rather than internationally recognized standards.

In recent years, wireless communication has added to networking's proliferation and, as such, is particularly useful for the home environment. So, the book next details wireless LANs, the IEEE 802.11 standards family, and HomeRF, a radio home-networking industry specification with an unclear future.

For each technology, Home Networking Basis presents main features of each specification or standard, transmission protocols, corresponding transceiver structures, performance estimates, and corresponding implementation approaches. It only marginally discusses the security of the different communications networking technologies.

The text concludes with a brief look at broadband access technologies for linking the Internet with home networks. Here, the book discusses Internet Protocol connections (network address translations), MAC (media access control) bridging, peer-to-peer networking principles, and home network topologies.

Using detailed simulation techniques provided as MATLAB and Simulink models accompanying each chapter, the book covers the technical challenges and implementation of twisted-pair telephone wiring, coax, powerline, and radio frequency transmission. (You can download the models and other supplements at http://authors.phptr.com/chen.) It also offers numerous mathematical channel models, schemas, graphs, and figures related to the actual transmission characteristics of various media. Unfortunately, many figures (mainly those from standards) aren't high quality.

The book is clearly US-oriented, so international readers might not find information on specific regulatory or normative situations in their countries.

Author Walter Chen is a leading expert on broadband communications and high-speed copper digital transmission systems, with research experience from AT&T Bell Labs, NYNEX, Motorola, Bellcore, and Texas Instruments. Chen holds 15 US patents and also authored DSL: Simulation Techniques and Standards Development for Digital Subscriber Lines.

Rita Puzmanova is an independent networking specialist, technology writer, and trainer. Contact her at rita@ieee.org.