This page will be removed on August 6th 2026. Please update your links to refer to https://esb.ics.hawaii.edu/2002spring.ics651/index.html instead.

Computer Networks, ICS 651

This page is http://www2.ics.hawaii.edu/~esb/2002spring.ics651/index.html

Note: This is the 2002 page. The 2003 page is here

This is subject to change without notice -- please reload it in your browser if there is an item that might affect you that may have changed.

Instructor: Edo Biagioni

Office is in POST 311B, telephone (808)956-3891, e-mail esb@hawaii.edu. Office hours are:
todo

Goals

In this course, students will:

Organization

Lectures are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30-2:45 in Kuykendall 209.

This course has homework assignments, projects, reviews, and exams. The homeworks are not graded, though you may turn them in if you wish to have them checked or if you have questions. Reviews are also not graded.

All students are required to join the course mailing list -- to join, send email to listproc@hawaii.edu, with no subject (and no .signature!), and as contents: 

   subscribe ics651-l@hawaii.edu your name
where you should use your actual name (up to 4 words) in place of "your name". Please only send email FROM your hawaii.edu account -- the account from which you send the subscribe request is the account that will be subscribed. I will review the list and remove anyone who is subscribed from outside the hawaii.edu domain or who is not registered for the class. See here if you need help accessing your email on your hawaii.edu account.

I send email to the mailing list with announcements and such. The mailing list may also be used for class-wide discussion on topics relevant to the course. You should feel free to initiate such discussion.

Grades are assigned based on your performance on:

A cumulative score of 90% will guarantee an A in the course, 80% a B, 60% a C, and 50% a D. Depending on the performance of the class as a whole, I may or may not grade more generously (i.e. grade on a curve). However, I expect to assign grades based on your performance on projects and exams. In grading, I will be looking for evidence of understanding of the material and evidence of your ability to do work in the field. Projects must be turned in on time. You must do well in the projects to do well in this class. Exams may be taken early, if requested at least two weeks before the scheduled time.

Any homeworks will not affect the final grade, so turning them in is optional. I do, however, recommend that you do them. Participation (electronic and in class) is likewise highly recommended but does not affect your grade.

The first and second project must be done individually. The third project may be done individually or in teams of your choosing, up to a maximum of three students. For the first two projects you must use the C language, the third project may be in any language supported by uhunix2.

The textbook is "Computer Networks -- A Systems Approach", by Peterson and Davie (2nd edition). The textbook is available from the UH bookstore.

I may also make notes available during the course.

Cheating Policy: any cheating will result in a grade of 0 for the assignment or exam the first time it is detected, and a grade of F for the course for any subsequent instance. There is to be no collaboration whatsoever on homeworks, projects, or exams (you may study together, but anything you turn in, must be entirely your own intellectual contribution). This applies to the entire group in the case of group projects.

Tentative Schedule

This schedule is subject to change.

Lectures notes are in HTML. I usually post notes no later than the day before the lecture.

This schedule is loosely based on the same course taught in the Fall 2000. If you wish to look ahead, please refer to that course, since the broad outline of the two courses is very similar.

  1. Introduction, APIs, and Applications. Notes for this section.
  2. Internet Protocol, Routing, Protocol Implementation. Notes for this section.

    Feb 14. Exam 1, covering all the material up to now.

  3. Transport layer, Transmission Control Protocol, Error Detection and Retransmission, Flow and Congestion Control

    Mar 12. Exam 2, covering all the material since Exam 1.

  4. Lower layer, Wireless, Ethernet, Learning Bridges, Switches
  5. Public Networks, ATM, Connection-Oriented Networking, Frame Relay

    Apr 18. Exam 3, covering all the material since Exam 2.

  6. Protocol Design: Basic Issues, Performance, Network Architecture, Security, Encoding, Compression.
  7. May 7. Review.
    Materials Covered: The final exam for this course is Tuesday May 14, 12:00-2:00pm. The final covers the entire course.