We are witnessing an ever-increasing thrust toward the era of multimedia information networks, largely spurred by the U.S. Government's proposal for the National Information Infrastructure in the fall of 1993. While more people are subscribing to the services of narrowband ISDN, the implementation of broadband ISDN by means of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has accelerated since the formation of the ATM Forum in 1993. In the meantime, frame relay may prevail for inter-LAN connections. In the "upper layer" of the network, commercial use of Internet is rapidly emerging. To ensure the successful development of technology, it is vital to use a judicious approach in assessing the architecture and performance of the systems that implement the technology. It is this spirit that underlies the present conference, which is intended to provide an international forum for the presentation of recent research results in the area of local and metropolitan communication systems. This conference has two sets of predecessors. It is the third in a series of international conferences on Local and Metropolitan Communication Systems -LAN & MAN; the first was held in Toulouse in 1986 and the second in Palma de Mallorca in 1991. It is also the fourth in a triennial series organized by Kyoto University and others on the performance of communication-related systems; the previous ones were held in Tokyo (1985) and Kyoto (1988, 1991).

Like its predecessors, this fully updated Fifth Edition of Local and Metropolitan Area Networks provides a clear, comprehensive presentation of LAN/MAN technology and the many emerging approaches to high-speed local networking. It meets the needs of today's students by emphasizing both the fundamental principles as well as the critical role of performance in driving LAN/MAN design.

Data processing, Telecommunication, Information exchange, Local area networks, Metropolitan area networks, Data stations, Communication media, Access control (data), Access, Topology

Media (communication), Communication networks, Information exchange, Telecommunication, Information technology

This book concerns digital communication. Specifically, we treat the transport of bit streams from one geographical location to another over various physical media, such as wire pairs, coaxial cable, optical fiber, and radio waves. Further, we cover the mul tiple access and synchronization issues relevant to constructing communication net works that simultaneously transport bit streams from many users. The material in this book is thus directly relevant to the design of a,multitude of digital communication systems, including for example local and metropolitan area data networks, voice and video telephony systems, digital CATV distribution, digital cellular and radio systems, the narrowband and broadband integrated services digital network (ISDN), computer communication systems, voiceband data modems, and satellite communication sys tems. We extract the common principles underlying these and other applications and present them in a unified framework. This book is intended for designers and would-be designers of digital communication systems. To limit the scope to manageable proportions we have had to be selective in the topics covered and in the depth of coverage. In the case of advanced information, coding, and detection theory, for example, we have not tried to duplicate the in-depth coverage of many advanced textbooks, but rather have tried to cover those aspects directly relevant to the design of digital communication systems.