Communication Networks

Course Description

Communication Networks is an introduction to communications networks covering design principles, protocols, the OSI model and the layering model of networks, the physical, data link and network layers, network topologies, routing, multiplexing, error detection and correction, and an introduction to local area networks. It is offered concurrently with EEL5520, with graduate students assigned additional work.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, EEL is the Electrical Engineering prefix. The University of West Florida publishes this at 3 semester hours through the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Science and Engineering. It is offered at approximately 2 Florida institutions.

⚠ This is networking taught from the electrical engineering side, and that changes it. A computer science networking course typically starts at the application layer and works down, treating the physical layer as a given. UWF's prerequisite is EEL3135 Discrete-Time Signals and Systems, which signals the opposite orientation: the physical and data link layers get real attention, error control coding is treated mathematically, and the question of how bits survive a noisy channel is taken seriously rather than assumed away. Students should expect signal processing to appear where a CS course would have protocol specifications.

Layering is the idea to leave with, and it is one of the most successful abstractions in engineering. Each layer offers a service to the one above and uses the service of the one below, which is why an application written decades ago still works over hardware that did not exist then. The corresponding lesson is that the abstraction leaks — performance problems routinely cross layers, and a protocol tuned for wired links behaves badly over wireless ones for reasons the layer boundary hides.

⚠ The contact-hour figure is derived — the University of West Florida publishes none

UWF's catalog publishes a credit value in semester hours, the college and department, prerequisites, and a description. It does not publish contact hours, a lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course. It does publish a material and supply fee notice on the minority of courses that carry one — and maintains a separate Material & Supply and Equipment Fees section of the catalog — so the absence of a fee notice on this entry is meaningful, while the fee amount is not published here. Every contact-hour value in a UWF guide in this repository is therefore derived. The figure here applies the standard lecture convention of 15 contact hours per credit, giving 45 hours for a 3-semester-hour course. Confirm the meeting schedule with the department.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the OSI reference model and the function of each layer.
• Compare the OSI model with the TCP/IP model.
• Explain the principle of protocol layering and encapsulation.
• Describe network topologies and their characteristics.
• Describe transmission media and their physical limitations.
• Apply the Nyquist and Shannon capacity limits to a channel.
• Describe digital modulation schemes used in communication links.
• Describe line coding and its purpose.
• Describe multiplexing methods: time, frequency, wavelength, and code division.
• Describe circuit switching, packet switching, and their trade-offs.
• Apply error detection methods including parity and cyclic redundancy checks.
• Apply error correction using block codes.
• Describe automatic repeat request protocols and compare their efficiency.
• Describe framing and data link layer functions.
• Describe medium access control methods including CSMA/CD and CSMA/CA.
• Describe Ethernet operation and local area network structure.
• Describe network layer addressing and IP.
• Apply routing algorithms including shortest path and distance vector.
• Analyse network performance in terms of delay, throughput, and utilisation.
• Apply queueing concepts to network traffic.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe transport layer protocols and flow and congestion control.
• Describe wireless network standards and their physical layer.
• Describe network security threats and countermeasures at link and network layers.
• Simulate a network and interpret the results.
• Capture and analyse real network traffic.
• Describe software-defined networking.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• The OSI and TCP/IP models
• Layering and encapsulation
• Network topologies
• Transmission media and impairments
• Nyquist and Shannon capacity limits
• Digital modulation for links
• Line coding
• Multiplexing methods
• Circuit and packet switching
• Error detection: parity and CRC
• Error correction and block codes
• ARQ protocols
• Framing and data link functions
• Medium access control
• Ethernet and local area networks
• Network layer addressing and IP
• Routing algorithms
• Delay, throughput, and utilisation
• Introductory queueing analysis

Optional Topics

• Transport layer, flow and congestion control
• Wireless standards and physical layer
• Network security at link and network layers
• Network simulation
• Traffic capture and analysis
• Software-defined networking

Resources & Tools

• Leon-Garcia and Widjaja, Communication Networks — written for exactly this audience, an electrical engineering networks course, and it shares the course's title.
• Kurose and Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach — the dominant text overall; note that its top-down structure is the opposite of this course's orientation, which makes it a useful complement rather than a substitute.
• Tanenbaum and Wetherall, Computer Networks — the classic bottom-up treatment, and closer to this course's shape.
• Wireshark — free; capturing real traffic and watching encapsulation happen layer by layer is the single most effective way to make layering concrete. Install it in week one.
• ns-3 or OMNeT++ — free network simulators used in research.
• Cisco Packet Tracer — free through the Networking Academy; good for topology and routing exercises.
• GNS3 — free; network emulation with real device images.
• IETF RFCs (rfc-editor.org) — free; the actual protocol specifications, and reading one properly is a skill worth acquiring. RFC 791 and RFC 793 are the classics.
• IEEE 802 standards — 802.3 for Ethernet and 802.11 for wireless; check UWF Libraries for IEEE Xplore access, and note that IEEE makes some 802 standards freely available.
• IEEE Communications Society — inexpensive student membership.

Career Pathways

• Electrical and electronics engineers — SOC 17-2071, 17-2072.
• Network engineers and architects — SOC 15-1241; the physical-layer grounding from this course is a real differentiator against candidates trained only on configuration.
• Telecommunications engineering — carriers and equipment vendors.
• Defence communications systems — L3Harris in Melbourne and Palm Bay is a major tactical radio and communications supplier; NAS Pensacola, Eglin Air Force Base, and NSA Panama City are in UWF's region.
• Satellite communications — the Space Coast sector.
• Embedded and industrial networking — increasingly important as control systems become networked; see EEL4276.
• Network security — understanding protocols at the packet level is the foundation of the discipline.
• Wireless systems engineering — carrier and device-side roles.
• ⚠ Industry certifications complement this course rather than competing with it. A degree plus CCNA-level certification is a common and effective combination for network engineering roles.

Special Information

⚠ Offered concurrently with the graduate EEL5520

• UWF teaches this alongside EEL5520, with graduate students assigned additional work. The pattern is routine at UWF and, across the corpus so far, is confined to 4000-level courses.
• The effect on an undergraduate is a section with graduate students in it and reading pitched to work at both levels. Undergraduate requirements are lower by design — the differential is in the additional graduate work, not in the shared material.
• For a student considering graduate study it is a useful preview, and the instructor sees the student working next to the standard they would be held to.

⚠⚠ The asterisk in a UWF prerequisite means the course may be taken at the same time

• UWF's catalog marks a concurrent course with an asterisk, defined on the catalog's Course Information page as: "This course may be taken prior to or during the same term."
• ⚠ This is the single most useful piece of notation in the UWF engineering catalog, and it is easy to miss. A prerequisite written without an asterisk must be completed first; one written with an asterisk may be taken in the same term.
• The practical effect is on time to degree. Reading an asterisked prerequisite as a hard prerequisite adds a term to the sequence for no reason, and in a tightly chained major like electrical engineering that error compounds down the whole plan.
• Confirm with an advisor before relying on it, and note that the registration system, not the catalog text, is what actually enforces the rule.

⚠⚠ The prerequisite is EEL3135 — this is a signals-oriented networks course

• UWF publishes EEL3135 Discrete-Time Signals and Systems as the sole prerequisite, and it is not asterisked, so it must be complete.
• ⚠ That prerequisite is the clearest statement of what this course is. Requiring signals and systems rather than a programming or operating systems course means the physical and data link layers are treated with real analytical weight.
• Expect Shannon capacity, modulation, and coding to be worked quantitatively, not described.
• ⚠⚠ Computer science students should note the difference before enrolling. A CS networking course and this course share vocabulary and differ substantially in method; this one assumes the mathematics.

⚠ Where the physical layer sets the ceiling

• Shannon's capacity theorem gives a hard upper bound on error-free data rate for a given bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio. No coding scheme beats it, and claims to the contrary are always claims about something else.
• ⚠ Nyquist and Shannon answer different questions. Nyquist bounds the symbol rate for a bandwidth; Shannon bounds the information rate given noise. Students routinely conflate them.
• Bandwidth and throughput are not the same thing, and neither is the same as goodput once protocol overhead and retransmission are counted.
• ⚠⚠ Latency and bandwidth are independent, and this has practical consequences. Adding capacity does not reduce propagation delay, and a high-bandwidth satellite link with 500 ms round-trip time performs badly on protocols that wait for acknowledgements regardless of its capacity.

⚠⚠ Error control: detection and correction are different problems

• Detection asks whether the data changed; correction asks what it was. Correction always costs more redundancy, and choosing between them is an engineering decision driven by whether retransmission is available and cheap.
• ⚠ A CRC detects errors and does not correct them, and it is not a security mechanism — a CRC can be recomputed by anyone who modifies the data. Confusing a checksum with a cryptographic hash is a common and serious error.
• Retransmission is impractical where the round trip is long or the link is one-way, which is why deep-space and broadcast links use heavy forward error correction.
• ⚠⚠ Wireless breaks assumptions built for wired links. Protocols that treat packet loss as a congestion signal misbehave over wireless, where loss is frequently caused by interference instead — a clean example of the layering abstraction leaking.

FE exam relevance

The Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam is the first step toward Professional Engineer licensure, and in Florida it is administered under the Florida Board of Professional Engineers. Most students take the FE Electrical and Computer exam in their final year. Licensure matters less in electrical engineering than in civil — the industrial exemption means most electrical engineers in manufacturing and product work never need a PE — but it is required for consulting practice, for sealing designs, and for power and building-systems work, which is exactly where Florida's utility and infrastructure employment sits.

Course format and position in the curriculum

• Lecture with problem sets, and frequently simulation or packet-capture assignments.
• Typically taken in the fourth year, after EEL3135.
• Taught with graduate students in the room; expect the level to reflect that.
• ⚠ Install Wireshark and capture your own traffic in the first weeks. Seeing the headers you are studying, on your own machine, is worth more than any amount of reading about them.
• UWF publishes no contact hours, lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course, and no material and supply fee is noted on this entry. Confirm the offering pattern with the department.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement. ⚠ For engineering specifically, ABET-accredited programmes commonly require that upper-division engineering coursework be taken in residence, so transferability of the credit and applicability to the degree are separate questions.

EEL4510 is 3 semester hours at the University of West Florida, offered concurrently with the graduate EEL5520.