Rating: 
Summary: Excellent undergraduate text for communication systems.
Review: I bought this book as a reference for my second semester course in communications. Although I like Haykin's book very much, I believe Proakis handles digital comm. more thoroughly. After the first exam, my contemporaries started asking to borrow it!
Rating:
Summary: this book is awesome
Review: I don't know how they fit so much great stuff in this book. I bought it for a class - communications II at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but then I noticed that it actually TOLD me about stuff I had actually earlier SEARCHED the entire UIUC library for and come up empty-handed on. That alone gives it an A++++++++++++++ as far as I'm concerned. I mean, this book out of the blue tells me what I can't find in a whole library when I'm looking for it explicitly. It gives great information not just about the concepts behind various parts of practical information/coding theory and signal processing, but even gives some very useful hardware implementations of stuff, that before I never knew how was done. I mean, so you may see in other books all sorts of junk about multiplying 2 signals to convolve them in frequency domain, so multiplying by a sinusoid makes shifted copies. Big deal. This thing gives you a CIRCUIT with 4 diodes that actually modulates a signal by a sinusoid! Cool. This is one of the few books I've bought for classes that I'm keeping. If I'd known how cool it was BEFORE I bought it for the class, I would have bought it ANYWAY, even if I didn't then know it was going to be the book for the class! Such a deal!
Rating: 
Summary: Not an Intoductory Book
Review: I had this book for my intoductory communication class. Unfortunately this book is not for newbies as claimed by the authors or publishers. If you have previous experience with this subject, then this book may be helpful because it covers a lot of stuff. However if you are not very familiar with this subject, you will find this book unreadable and in some cases mathmatically incomplete. Also in several instances the book makes easy concepts complicated. One of the examples in the textbook which was solved by our instructor using about 5 steps was solved in the book with more than 15 steps. End of chapter problems are insane. I just wonder how the author expects us to do those by giving just a few trivial examples.
Bottomline is that if you have to buy this book because it is required by your instructor, then your instructor better be good and know shortcuts. If you are planning to buy this book for self study then I wouldn't recommend it. Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems by B.P. Lathi is a better choice as that book is easier to understand and more complete mathematically.
Rating: 
Summary: First, always look in the mirror
Review: I have used this book in my Communications Systems class at Northeastern, though Proakis was not the teacher. I see all the bad ratings everyone gives this book and I wonder why? Maybe they do not have the necessary background to fully understand digital communication? Just maybe...I liked this book. I used it along with the Matlab book and enjoyed the course. I would have given it a 5* if it had more examples.
Rating:
Summary: First, always look in the mirror
Review: I have used this book in my Communications Systems class at Northeastern, though Proakis was not the teacher. I see all the bad ratings everyone gives this book and I wonder why? Maybe they do not have the necessary background to fully understand digital communication? Just maybe... I liked this book. I used it along with the Matlab book and enjoyed the course. I would have given it a 5* if it had more examples.
Rating: 
Summary: How not to write a textbook
Review: I think that this textbook is among the poorest I have ever had the displeasure of using. My peers agree, this is a great reference book for a professor of communications systems. If you have to use this book for your class, you might as well give up now.
Rating:
Summary: Poor coverage of analog material
Review: I used this book for a "refresher" course prior to grad school. I considered some of the chapters to be breif in coverage, and as stated by others, lacking in examples. I have no comment on the later chapters on digital communication.
Rating:
Summary: Not very readable
Review: I usually understand concepts more from the book than from the class and a readable book is what prepares me for the exam. I regret to say that this book is not very readable for beginners. The book covers a lot of stuffs but not in great detail. Further the end of chapter problems CAN NOT be solved by reading the examples alone. So unless you have an excellent teacher teaching this class, or you have the basics for this course, stay away from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good review book
Review: Many of the bad marks for this book come from people using it to learn digital communications for the first time. However, I think its pretty good as a review text: it clearly and concisely covers the important concepts. It also manages to give a better feel of the theory from an application point of view, though their treatment of magnetic recording does not accurately describe important implementation details. My only knock on the book is that it would be well served by having more examples. Still, a better book as an overview is "Digital Communications" by Bernard Sklar.
Rating:
Summary: Another Proakis great
Review: Proakis has done it again with his newest textbook, "Communication Systems Engineering." This book is an invaluable reference and learning tool. It will remain on my desk as long as the desk is there!
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