CIS161: Fundamentals of Telecommunications

3 Units (2 lecture hours, 3 lab hours)

This course introduces students to the basic concepts of telecommunications, beginning with how communication signals are generated, encoded, transmitted, and received over telecommunications channels. Theory of analog and digital signals, frequency spectra, bandwidth, modulation, and multiplexing techniques are introduced and demonstrated. It covers the history of telecommunications technologies, industry, and governmental policy and how this history has led to the modern public telecommunications networks. Networking systems and equipment are explored, including transmission and reception technology, switching systems, and transmission media, such as optical fiber, copper, and wireless. Finally, students are introduced to the technological advances in broadband and convergence technologies, the merging of voice, data, and video applications on a single network. The laboratory portion of this course allows students to verify concepts introduced in class and develop the prerequisite knowledge and skills required to build, test, operate, and maintain telecommunications networks.

Prerequisite: None
Corequisite: None
Recommended Preparation: CIS 120, 121