Quite a number of books have been published recently on reliability and recovery aspects in telecommunications, computer networks, and information technology (IT). This book distinguishes itself from those by the author’s attempt to balance reliability theory with practical methods for providing reliability in operating networks. The book presents basic theoretical facts and methodologies, and the elaboration of these amounts to a refresher. On the other hand, the discussion of practical problems is more detailed, emphasizing engineering issues, especially those related to wireless networks, which do not often appear in books on network reliability.

Chapter 1 is a standard introduction to the well-known aspects of mathematical reliability theory, including the reliability function or failure intensity, standard distributions relevant in reliability modeling, and typical methods of reliability modeling, such as reliability block diagrams and Markov models. The balance leans more toward engineering aspects than mathematical modeling; therefore, the mathematics is basic and can only be used for rough estimates. After this introduction, the interesting part of the practical side of telecommunications reliability is presented, and the models are applied. Various reliability aspects are described for different types of networks: fiber optic networks in chapter 2, microwave networks in chapter 3, satellite networks in chapter 4, mobile wireless networks in chapter 5, and basic hardware, common in various networks (especially power systems), in chapter 6.

Each chapter concludes with some review questions and calculation exercises. I would like to stress, as a teacher, that these are an excellent source of inspiration for the tests and exams I use in my courses.

The book is very short--less than 250 pages--and thus could not serve as a full handbook on telecommunications reliability. However, that’s not the kind of book the author intended. I get the impression that he wanted to provide a very quick introduction to the field; in that, he succeeded. This work resembles another very good book [1], which also presents mainly practical issues related to reliability engineering. However, Ayers focuses more on telecommunications than on the general information technology or computer hardware field. For that reason, this book will be very useful for undergraduate students and practitioners who need a good introduction to, or a refresher on, the reliability aspects of the networks they work with.