• Internetworks and their identification mechanisms
• Protocols
• Physical and Link layers
• Internet layer
• Transport layer
• Application layer

• Subnetworks and internetworks, intranets and extranets
• Internet applications and recent tendencies (P2P applications and multimedia applications)
• Architecture and essential components of internetworks (routing, …)
• History and structure of the Internet (ISP's, …)
• Need for an unique identification (addressing), IPv4 adressing, prefix length syntax
• FLSM, VLSM and CIDR subnetting and supernetting
• The DNS systeem: primary and secundary nameservers, name resolution, reverse DNS
• Clients and servers, protocols and interfaces, peer processes, protocol hierarchies
• Fragmenting, incapsulation, multiplexing
• Reference models: OSI and DARPA
• Routers, bridges and repeaters (in the framework of the OSI reference model)
• Topology of subnetworks: point-to-point and broadcast subnetworks
• Physical and logical subnetwork technologies
• Methods for error detection and error correction: parity check, checksum, CRC, Hamming codes
• Ethernet communication: logical topology, CSMA/CD, collision, exponential backoff
• Structure of an Ethernet frame, MAC adressing, MTU
• Physical topology of Ethernet subnetworks: thicknet, thinnet, twisted pair, optical fiber
• Extensions of Ethernet subnetworks: repeaters and hubs, bridges, remote bridges, switches, routers, broadcast and collision domains, adaptive learning, DST algoritm
• Cut-through and store-and-forward switches, classical and switched Ethernet
• Virtual LAN's and VLAN tags
• Access networks by modem, PPP
• Broadband access networks by ADSL and HFC cable, FDM, POTS, QAM-16, splitter, ATM, SDH, upstream and downstream channels
• Bluetooth, WiMAX and WiFi wireless LAN's
• CSMA/CA access mechanism, fragment bursts, DCF and PCF modi, beacon frames
• Token Ring and FDDI: logical and physical topology, bridges
• Circuit switched, packet switched, connection-oriented and connection-free internetworks, Frequency and Time Division Multiplexing
• Input and output delay, label switching, signaling protocols
• Structure of an IP datagram, fragmentation, path MTU discovery
• Internals of routers, routing processor, switching fabric
• Drop tail and HOL blocking, congestion signals, AQM and RED algoritms
• Shortcomings of best-effort delivery (multimedia applications)
• Processing, queuing, transmission and propagation delay, jitter
• Methods voor QoS improvement: integrated and differentiated services
• RSVP, ingress and core routers, DSCP field, Per-Hop behavior
• MPLS, LDP, RSVP-TE, label stacking
• ARP, DHCP, NAT, multicasting, PIM, DVMRP
• Transport protocols: end-to-end, connection-oriented, full-duplex
• Sockets and ports
• Structure of an TCP segment, three-way handshaking
• Reliable data transmission: pipelining, Go Back N and Selective Repeat protocols, accumulated acknowledgements, piggybacking, Round Trip Time, Fast Retransmit, implicit and explicit NACK
• Trafic control: window advertisement, zero window, silly window syndrome
• Congestion control: congestion window and congestion treshold, slow start, fast recovery, ECN
• UDP and RTP, Integrated Layer Processing
• The World Wide Web, HyperText Transfer Protocol, Uniform Resource Locator
• Structure of an HTTP messages, persistent connections, authentication, cookies
• HTTP caching and proxy servers
• HTTP content: static, dynamic and active content, multimedia streaming

• General introduction to computer netwerks and internetworks
• Basic concepts of IP adressing and DNS identification
• Study of the OSI and TCP/IP reference models
• Survey of several LAN technologies
• Properties and behavior of repeaters, hubs, bridges, switches and routers
• Internals of the IP protocol
• Methods voor QoS improvement (multimedia applications)
• Internals of the TCP transport protocol
• Application layer protocol, case study: HTTP

• Ability to gather and process scientific and technical information in an adequate way (AWC4)
• Ability to set up, manage and maintain small and large computer networks (SC5)

Further reading:

• Comer, Douglas E., Computer Networks and Internets, Prentice-Hall, 2004
• Hall, Eric A., Internet Core Protocols, O'Reilly, 2000
• Kurose, James F. en Ross, Keith W., Computer Networking, Addison-Wesley, 2004
• Tanenbaum, Andrew S., Computer Networks, Prentice Hall, 2003