Fall 2016 -- Course information:

What: ICSI445/660 Advanced Topics in Networking
When/Where: TTh 02:45PM-04:05PM in BA0214
Instructor: Mariya Zheleva, mzheleva [at] albany [dot] edu
TA: TBD
Office hours: Mariya: M 11AM-12PM and W 1PM-2PM in UAB418
Class email and discussion: ICSI445/660 Blackboard page
Prerequisites: Course prerequisites include CSI416 or an equivalent. Students taking this class should have a detailed understanding of network communications and protocol principles. Students should also have programming skills.

Description: This course will focus on the state of the art of mobile wireless networks. We will begin with fundamentals in wireless network architectures, protocols and operations. We will start by answering how are wireless links different than wired and what challenges does this pose to network design and integration. We will study the architecture and operations of networks you use on a daily basis including Wi-Fi 802.11 and mobile cellular networks. We will then transition to our advanced topics by identifying and surveying pitfalls that shape the wireless capacity crunch. We will cover the state of the art of novel technologies for increased network capacity that have the potential to accommodate the multi-zettabytes traffic projections. The students will have the opportunity to learn new techniques and concepts while working on an original research project with the end goal of producing real publishable results. In addition, the students will gain experience in efficient reading and understanding of technical papers, and giving public technical presentations.

Textbooks: All the required reading for this class is based on research papers and Chapter 6 from the Kurose book. There are a few useful textbooks (not required for this class) that you can use to remind yourself of some key concepts.

• Kurose and Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet, "recent" edition.
• Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, "recent" edition.
• Peterson and Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, "recent" edition.

Policies:

Grading policy:

• Project -- 50%
• Project proposal -- 10%
• Midterm presentation/Demo -- 5%
• Testing and evaluation specification -- 10%
• Final class presentation -- 10%
• Final project report -- 15%
• Paper presentation -- 10%
• Class participation -- 10%
• Homeworks -- 30%
• Homework 1 -- 10%
• Homework 2 (paper review) -- 5%
• Homework 3 (PlanetLab) -- 10%
• Homework 4 (paper review) -- 5%

Class Participation: I expect you to attend every class. If you miss a couple of classes this will affect your grade. I also expect active participation in in-class discussion; if you attend class but do not participate, you will not receive the full class participation credit. To prepare for these discussions, you are highly encouraged to read the assigned reading before coming to class.

Assignments: I do not accept late assignments. All assignments are due by 11:59PM on the due date (unless otherwise specified).

Cheating: Cheating is not tolerated. Please, read the university Community Rights and Responsibilities for more information on cheating. Students caught cheating will receive 0 points for the corresponding assignment. More serious consequences are possible as well.