Basic Information

  • Course Code: EE 706
  • Course Name: Communication Networks
  • Course Offered In: 2023-2024
  • Semester Season: Spring
  • Instructors: Prof. Gaurav Kasbekar
  • Prerequisites: Not really, recommended to complete Probability-1 first
  • Difficulty (1 being easy and 5 being tough): 2

Course Content

Layers of the internet, packet switching and related delay analysis. Mathematical description of various communication protocols like Medium Access Protocols (Wifi and Ethernet), TCP. Routing (a bit of graph theory is also taught here), Congestion control and Fairness of routing protocols. A primer for more advanced technologies such as 4G/5G. A lot of the course is about about getting the expected values of some metric (normally transmission rate) when using a certain protocol.

Feedback on Lectures

Many find these monotonous, attendance drops quite a lot, but the prof doesn’t mind. Everything is present in the slides, shared on Moodle. The lectures barely deviate from these slides unless a student asks a doubt.

Feedback on Evaluations

Very easy, given that you’ve gone through the homework questions shared on moodle. Cheat sheets are generally allowed. Papers can be lengthy, pace yourself properly. There are 3 quizzes (Best 2 taken), a midsem, and the endsem.

Study Material and Resources

The homeworks given on moodle are enough.

Follow-up Courses

Not that I know of, but any courses about communication are at least closely related.

Final Takeaway

It’s an easy course, and demands minimal effort except for solving the homework sheets. If you struggle a lot with probability however, then this might not suit you.