¨ Fundamentals of data communications and networking: data transmission, Analog communications, digital communications, communication media and equipment, data encoding schemes, synchronous transmission, asynchronous transmission, interfacing, network topologies, different types of network protocols

¨ Applications of data communications networks: OSI Model, TCP/IP Model, application layer protocols, distributed systems, applications on the Internet, intranets, extranets

¨ Types of networks and communication services: local area networks, backbone networks, metropolitan networks and wide area networks, switched circuits, dedicated circuits, fast packet services.