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Rating: 
Summary: the only book that doesn't assume a baseline knowledge...
Review: Coming to the telecommunications industry from a totally different area - I didn't know where to begin, the learning curve was steep and there isn't a lot of learning material on SDH in North America. I loved this book. There's a bunch of online tutorials if you look to the industry leader websites, but it's all assumming a core level of knowledge. I found I was wasting too much time just trying to figure out the smallest details.Kartalopoulos - has taught the subject at many seminars and knew which areas gave people the most difficulty. It's obvious that he took this input to heart when clarifying issues that many others don't think to spend time on - and the way he does it is great.
Rating:
Summary: Great buy for the starters in this field
Review: For any one trying for introduction to the topics SONET/SDH ATM This book is the best. Very lucid explanation with lot of good figures and mainly you can read it at bedtime/while travelling and get authentic overview of the subject , A must for the managers in the field and engineers starting to work in the field. The main feature is that it packs a lot of information in such a compact book and which is very well readable.
Rating:
Summary: Great buy for the starters in this field
Review: For any one trying for introduction to the topics SONET/SDH ATM This book is the best. Very lucid explanation with lot of good figures and mainly you can read it at bedtime/while travelling and get authentic overview of the subject , A must for the managers in the field and engineers starting to work in the field. The main feature is that it packs a lot of information in such a compact book and which is very well readable.
Rating: 
Summary: Ample illustration / Inordinary approach
Review: The book is thin ( less than 300 pages ). However, it covers 2 topics: SONET and ATM. It goes in a slightly abnormal way to arrange the content: Many detail facts, less explaination. For example, it provides a huge amount of figures in comparison with other books. There are some sentances describing the coverage of SONET on OSI-RM to be from layer 1 to layer 7, but no further discussion to tell us why? It does give us a crue to refer to the GR documents of Bellcore, but this apears to be another difficault problem. It's also a pity of lacking completeness. For example, TMN is not mentioned here; while in other books TMN occupies a certain space for its expectation to operate SONET management. All the cases above apple to the 2nd half of this book, ATM. Overall, the book still worths a glance. The value of this book lies on the depth of each topic discussed. Along with marvelous figures, this is fairly a good source for reference.
Rating:
Summary: Good material but riddled with errors
Review: The content of this book makes it an excellent introduction to SONET/SDH and as such is self contained. The material covered is presented clearly and comprehensively. What lets this book down is the large number of errors throughout the book, many of which appear to be lack of proof-reading. Unfortunately many of these errors will servce to confuse the reader who is looking for a reliable introductory text.
Rating: 
Summary: Very basic introduction and overview of SONET and ATM
Review: This book is certainly not a in-depth/exhaustive documentation of SONET and ATM. However, it does provide a general understanding of how SONET/ATM fits in the grand scheme of things. It explains some of the obvious facts of why things are the way they are (e.g. 4Kbps BW of human voice signal, and therefore 8Ksps by Nyquist's sampling theory).
I do agree with Newport Beach reader that there seems to be some errors (I didn't know Shannon is accredited with 2X sampling theory, I have never heard of frequency hopping associated with DMT, usual just CDMA/SS).
I do find the book well organized and ideas flow in continuous manner. This is good for picking up buzz words but be prepared to look elsewhere for a full explanation. As an example, it mentions about optical components such as EDFA and pumps. If you know what these components are, then everything flows. If not, then you'll have to google.
Book should be good for manager/sales people. Even an average engineer with minimal experience (like me) would find it too brief. This is the kind of book for bedtime reading (i.e. no equations) and would most likely sit on the shelf after.
Rating:
Summary: Very basic introduction and overview of SONET and ATM
Review: This book is certainly not a in-depth/exhaustive documentation of SONET and ATM. However, it does provide a general understanding of how SONET/ATM fits in the grand scheme of things. It explains some of the obvious facts of why things are the way they are (e.g. 4Kbps BW of human voice signal, and therefore 8Ksps by Nyquist's sampling theory).
I do agree with Newport Beach reader that there seems to be some errors (I didn't know Shannon is accredited with 2X sampling theory, I have never heard of frequency hopping associated with DMT, usual just CDMA/SS).
I do find the book well organized and ideas flow in continuous manner. This is good for picking up buzz words but be prepared to look elsewhere for a full explanation. As an example, it mentions about optical components such as EDFA and pumps. If you know what these components are, then everything flows. If not, then you'll have to google.
Book should be good for manager/sales people. Even an average engineer with minimal experience (like me) would find it too brief. This is the kind of book for bedtime reading (i.e. no equations) and would most likely sit on the shelf after.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of errors and not a good explanation of SONET
Review: This book was published by the IEEE. It lists two technical reviewers (Curtis Newton and Kevin Sparks) and the author thanks certain anonymous reviewers, I assume, in addition to Newton and Sparks. And yet, the book has an amazing number of errors, even to my quick reading. For example, on page 4 he credits Shannon as developing the criteria that you must sample at twice the bandwidth of interest, when this is generally credited to Nyquist (even Shannon credits Nyquist). On page 10, he claims that 2B1Q is limited to 392 Kbps, when 2B1Q is used on HDSL to provision T1 lines at 1.544 Mbps over two pair (about 784 Kbps over each pair). Extensions to the standard by companies such as Conexant have pushed 2B1Q to about 2.046 Mbps on a single pair. Also on page 10, he associates "frequency hopping" with DMT, instead of wireless spread spectrum. He also claims that CAP modulation can only achieve data rates of 10-175 Kbps. I'm sure the engineers at Globespan will get a chuckle out of that. On page 66, there's an error in Figure 8.9. On pages 55, 56, and 57, his explanation of pointer adjustments has an error on when the pointer is adjusted. And that's just with a quick review (maybe 30 minutes). But perhaps more importantly, his explanation of SONET/SDH is just not very thorough or clear. Unfortunately, I can't point you at a good book on SONET/SDH. All of the books I looked at just don't do a good job of explaining it. If you already know the technology you can read the books and understand them, but if you're just starting out you'll get lost in a hurry. For a good explanation of the network, in general, the best book I've found is Bellamy's "Digital Telephony," 3rd edition. His explanation of SONET, while accurate, is too brief for a novice, however.
Rating:
Summary: Take SDH out of the title.
Review: With the current explosion of SDH networking across the globe, a reader would expect a little more substance on SDH in a book that claims to also cover SDH. While the book does highlight SDH in a few chapters, it lacks greatly and cross-references much information on SDH to SONET. While SONET and SDH are similar, they are not the same and the book can confuse readers wanting to learn about SDH by referencing SONET rates in an SDH chapter. I wish some of these authors would get off the SDH bandwagon and stop trying to write something in an area that appears to be outside their expertise. This book is a book about SONET and ATM. For any reader wishing to learn more on SDH, this book is NOT the book to read. The only thing I found useful in this book was the figures available on the CD inside the cover. What I do with the book now is let it collect dust on my bookshelf.
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