The objective of this book is to provide an overall survey of local area network (LAN) technology. The author has attempted to make the book useful to both nontechnically and technically oriented readers by dividing most chapters into nontechnical and technical parts. The author succeeds admirably for the nontechnical reader, and partially for the technical reader.

The best part of the book is chapter 2, “The Physical Layer.” This 47-page chapter covers the details of the various physical media, connectors, and interfaces used in Ethernet and 802 LANs. It is remarkably clear and comprehensive. The next chapter, on the data-link layer, will give the nontechnical reader a good understanding of the concepts of medium access control and logical link control. The technical portion of the chapter adds some, but not much, detail.

Chapter 4, on internetworking, follows a similar pattern. For the reader not terribly familiar with LANs, the discussion of bridges and routers is clear and useful. The technical discussion provides an accurate summary of internetworking techniques, but the technical reader will find the material insufficient. The following chapter, on the transport layer, is a short discussion of some basic concepts of addressing at the transport layer plus a brief introduction to client-server computing.

The final chapter deals with Netbios. While Netbios is an important topic and is adequately covered, it is only one session-level technology worth introducing into a book of this kind.

The book is a useful introduction to LANs for the nontechnical reader. It is also of use to a technically oriented reader with no previous background in LANs and no need for in-depth technical presentation.