Telecom 101 Solstice Sale $99

Order Now. Use Coupon 1346 to get the softcover for $99. (Regular price $179.)

Packed with information, authoritative, up to date, covering all major topics – and written in plain English – Telecom 101 is an invaluable textbook and day-to-day reference on telecommunications for non-engineers.

This is the best comprehensive book on telecommunications available anywhere: based on the course materials for Teracom’s famous instructor-led Course 101 Broadband, Telecom, Datacom and Networking for Non-Engineers, the selection of content, its order, timing and pacing have been tuned, refined and constantly updated over years to effectively define and deliver the core set of technical knowledge needed by anyone serious in the telecom business today.

Telecom 101 Sixth Edition is right up to date with discussion of aircraft interfering with 5G in the C-band.

Telecom 101 covers the technologies, the players, the products and services, jargon and buzzwords, and most importantly, the underlying ideas… and how it all fits together.

In one book, you get consistency, completeness and unbeatable value: a wealth of clear, concise, organized knowledge, impossible to find in one place anywhere else!

Reviewing the Telecom 101 Table of Contents, you’ll find that many chapters are like self-contained reference books on specific topics; get all of these topics bound in one volume for one low price.

Compare this to hunting down and paying for multiple books by different authors that may or may not cover what you need to know- and you’ll agree this is a very attractive deal.

Telecom 101 is an economical and convenient way to self-study… these are the materials to an instructor-led course that costs $1895 to attend.

Written by our top instructor, Eric Coll, M.Eng., Telecom 101 contains decades of knowledge and learning distilled and organized into an invaluable study guide and practical day-to-day reference for non-engineers: career- and productivity-enhancing training… an investment in life-long knowledge that will be repaid many times over.

Order softcover now
Use coupon 1346 for the Solstice Sale price of $99
Plus 7.95 shipping to US lower 48 States and Canadian provinces
Sale ends after the big party that caps off the week of solstice feasting (Jan 2)

Hardcover Telecom 101 is also on sale

eBook: available on AmazonGoogle and Apple

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New release of CVA Study Guide

TCO CVA Certified VoIP Analyst Study Guide

New up-to-date version released July 2022.

Available from Amazon in hard cover, soft cover or ebook.

Printed in color!

Certification study guide and companion reference textbook for the TCO Certified VoIP Analyst (CVA) courses and exams. The CVA Study Guide corresponds directly to the CVA online courses and exams. For each lesson, detailed text notes are provided along with the main graphic.

Many people find they learn better with a companion book.

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CWA Study Guide 2nd Edition

Available in Softcover, Hardcover and eBook.

The CWA Study Guide is an essential enhancement to the TCO Certified Wireless Analyst Certification Package.

The CWA Study Guide contains detailed notes and graphics corresponding exactly to the CWA lessons.

This book therefore contains all of the answers to the CWA exam questions!

Having a companion reference textbook avoids the need to take notes, and greatly enhances learning and retention, helping you learn and burn the concepts into the neurons of your brain.

The book is invaluable as a printed companion to online courses, and can also be used for self-learning without online courses.

In both cases, it will serve as an excellent day-to-day reference and handbook.

Get your CWA Study Guide Today!

TCO CTNS Study Guide On Sale $69

CTNS Study Guide 2nd Edition is now available in hardcover, softcover and eBook Editions!
Softcover Edition On Sale for $69. Save $20.

The CTNS Study Guide is an ideal companion to CTNS online courses and day-to-day reference. 406 pages, printed in color, professionally bound.

Grab your print copy today at a very reasonable price.

On sale until Jun 30, 2022 or while quantities last.

Purchase T4210 CTNS Study Guide Softcover and apply coupon 1343.

Telecom 101: Sixth Edition 2022

Telecom 101 Textbook: Sixth Edition 2022
Release special: Brand-new softcover Telecom 101 $99 – save 44%. Ends Jun 30th. Details. 

550 pages • Fully revised and updated • Published 2022

Packed with information, authoritative, up to date, covering all major topics – and written in plain English – Telecom 101 is an invaluable textbook and day-to-day reference on telecommunications for non-engineers.

This is the best comprehensive book on telecommunications available anywhere: based on the course materials for Teracom’s famous instructor-led Course 101 Broadband, Telecom, Datacom and Networking for Non-Engineers, the selection of content, its order, timing and pacing have been tuned, refined and constantly updated over years to effectively define and deliver the core set of technical knowledge needed by anyone serious in the telecom business today.

Telecom 101 Sixth Edition is right up to date with discussion of aircraft interfering with 5G in the C-band.

Telecom 101 covers the technologies, the players, the products and services, jargon and buzzwords, and most importantly, the underlying ideas… and how it all fits together.

In one book, you get consistency, completeness and unbeatable value: a wealth of clear, concise, organized knowledge, impossible to find in one place anywhere else!

Reviewing the Telecom 101 Table of Contents, you’ll find that many chapters are like self-contained reference books on specific topics; get all of these topics bound in one volume for one low price.

Compare this to hunting down and paying for multiple books by different authors that may or may not cover what you need to know- and you’ll agree this is a very attractive deal.

Telecom 101 is your go-to resource covering all major topics:

  • The modern Broadband Converged IP Telecom Network
  • Telecom fundamentals: modems and multiplexing
  • Network fundamentals: packets and frames, TCP ports, MPLS
  • Internet fundamentals: ISPs, DNS, cloud computing, web services, data centers
  • Telecom services: residential, business, wholesale
  • Digital media: digitized voice, video, images, quantities, text
  • VoIP fundamentals: system components, voice in packets, SIP, softswitches, gateways
  • Wireless: spectrum, mobile networks, LTE, 5G, broadband wireless, Wi-Fi, satellite
  • Fiber: fundamentals, wavelengths, DWDM, Optical Ethernet, fiber to the premise
  • Copper: the PSTN, analog, POTS, DSL, Hybrid Fiber-Coax, LAN cables
  • Equipment: routers, Layer 2 switches, call managers / softswitches, legacy CO switches and PBXs, gateways
  • The OSI Model: the Layers, their purpose, implementation, how protocol stacks work
  • Ethernet, LANs and VLANs: MAC addresses, MAC frames, Layer 2 switches, VLANs
  • IP: public and private IP addresses, subnets, routers, DHCP, NAT, IPv6
  • MPLS and Carrier Networks: Service Level Agreements, virtual circuits, business VPNs, Class of Service
  • Wrapping up: Technology deployment steps, analysis, design, implementation, The Future

Telecom 101 is the course materials for Course 101, allowing study and review of topics before attending a course, and a valuable desk reference after.

Telecom 101 is also the course book and study guide for the TCO Certified Telecommunications Analyst (CTA) telecommunications certification.

Telecom 101 is an economical and convenient way to self-study… these are the materials to an instructor-led course that costs $1895 to attend.

Written by our top instructor, Eric Coll, M.Eng., Telecom 101 contains decades of knowledge and learning distilled and organized into an invaluable study guide and practical day-to-day reference for non-engineers: career- and productivity-enhancing training… an investment in life-long knowledge that will be repaid many times over.

Softcover: order direct from Teracom. Limited-time sale $99

Hardcover: order from Amazon

eBook: available on AmazonGoogle and Apple
The eBook edition contains every word from the hardcover and softcover editions, in reflowable text and images that display on any device. A detailed hyperlinked Table of Contents allows pinpoint navigation to the information you need.

Free preview chapters

Join thousands of satisfied customers.
Get your copy today!

CTNS Study Guide – Hardcover and Softcover Now available!

The CTNS Study Guide corresponds exactly to the CTNS courses, with detailed notes plus knowledge objectives and summaries for every lesson.

Now available in a beautiful high-quality hardcover edition, a pleasure to  hold, plus the traditional more compact softcover format.

Softcover is in stock and ships right away.

Note: Hardcovers are printed one at a time, just for you, adding 15 days to delivery time.  The quality of the cover and binding is worth the wait!

Of course the eBook version is also available through our online partners.

Tutorial – What Modems Do: Carrier Frequencies, Phase Shifts and QAM

Modulation means producing energy that is vibrating at a single pure frequency, called a carrier frequency or subcarrier, and changing aspects of it in discrete steps to represent bits. 

The device that performs this function is called a modulator.  A demodulator is required at the far end to interpret the carrier frequency and decide what bits it is representing at any given time.  Clearly, we want devices to do both functions to implement two-way communications, so they are called modulator/demodulators or modems for short.

One aspect of the carrier than can be changed to represent bits is the volume or amplitude of the carrier: changing the amplitude of the carrier in discrete steps makes changes that represent bits.

Another aspect is the phase of the carrier: when the peak of the cycle is happening, in time, with respect to other carriers. Changing the time of the peak so it happens a bit earlier than others, or making it happen a bit later is making changes to the phase of the carrier that can represent bits (Figure 29).

Combinations of phase and amplitude shifting is called Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). QAM-64 means 64 possible different combinations of 8 different phases and 8 different amplitudes.

Each combination, also called a symbol or signal, is assigned a number. Binary numbers 6 bits long are required to give binary numbers to each of the 64 combinations.

7.3.2 Communicating Six Bits: Sending One of 64 QAM Signals

To communicate six bits in one fell swoop on a carrier, the transmitter generates electricity vibrating at the carrier frequency with the phase and amplitude corresponding to the combination indicated by the six-bit number.

The electricity is communicated on coaxial cables to Cable modems, on twisted pair to DSL modems, turned into radio by antennas for communication through space, or turned into light for communication in tubes of glass in very high capacity fiber transmission systems.

When the receiver detects energy at that single pure carrier frequency, it measures the phase and amplitude, and once it has decided, spits out the six-bit number of the combination it is hearing, and Bob’s your uncle.

7.3.3 Baud Rate

To get many bits per second, the procedure has to be repeated often!

Repeating it once per second yields 6 bits per second; the combination of phase and amplitude of the carrier is maintained for one second then changed to a different combination representing the next six bits.

The rate at which the procedure is repeated is called the baud rate, signaling rate and symbol rate.

The baud rate, how often a new combination can be applied to the carrier to communicate another 6 bits, is limited by interference called harmonics, where energy gets spread into adjacent frequencies, and interferes with communications on other carriers.

7.3.4 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)

When there are multiple carriers (called subcarriers) each running a modem, and the baud rate is the same as the subcarrier spacing, the harmonics from all subcarriers cancel out.

Eliminating this source of interference allows successful data transmission in parallel on closely spaced subcarriers.

This is a prime design characteristic of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), used on LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi, cable modems and DSL, and is the sweet spot for baud rate in terms of efficiency.

Source: CTNS Study Guide 2021, Course 2206, Section 7.3

New CTNS Study Guide

The new edition of the CTNS Study Guide is now available!

Available in Hardcover, Softcover and eBook

Incorporating all of the recent major updates to CTNS courses, the Study Guide includes all of the text and the main graphic from every lesson in every CTNS course.

CTNS Study Guide

7″ x 10″ • 406 pages
published May 2021
ISBN 9781894887625 (softcover)
ISBN 9781894887656 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781894887632 (eBook)

With a detailed table of contents, full notes, and a summary checklist of important topics for every lesson, many people find their learning experience greatly enhanced with the printed study guide.

The book will also serve as an invaluable day-to-day reference and handbook going forward.

Eight in one!

The CTNS Study Guide is the textbook for:
2241 Introduction to Broadband Converged IP Telecom
2206 Wireless Telecommunications
2221 Fundamentals of Voice over IP
2201 The PSTN
2212 OSI Layers and Protocol Stacks
2211 LANs, VLANs, Wireless and Optical Ethernet
2213 IP Addresses, Packets and Routers
2214 MPLS and Carrier Networks

Get your CTNS Study Guide Today!

The internationally-recognized TCO CTNS Certification represents the core telecommunications network knowledge required by everyone serious in the telecom world today.

Learn more about CTNS