News / iSchool Opens New Networking Lab
The iSchool has redesigned the Telecommunications Networking Lab (Room 831) to support hands-on lab experiences for students as well as the research activities of faculty. This laboratory will primarily be used for a new networking laboratory course (TELCOM 2010) that will be required for graduate Tele students and offered as an optional senior elective for undergraduate students. The objective of this lab-based course is to gain experience with computer networking issues through hands-on experiments with network equipment and services. Students will be able to experience networking from basic connections between two PCs to routing to advanced network applications. The course will cover topics such as connectivity at the physical layer, Ethernet and WLAN performance and management, IP address planning and management, IP router configurations, network monitoring and management, signaling protocols for VoIP services, and web-based services configuration.
The lab facility provides for four independent workbenches accommodating four students each. Each workbench has 3 PCs, one laptop and a networking equipment rack. This will allow each of the students at a workbench to work together on the assigned problem or design –allowing students to experience the team approach to problem-solving that exists in industry. An extra equipment rack in the lab provides interconnectivity between the four workbenches thus allowing the configuration of complex topologies involving ALL devices present in the lab. A separate research equipment rack was installed to support network configurations and to offer more network capabilities for faculty research programs.
The laboratory facility was designed by Visiting Professor Walter Cerroni and Carlos Caicedo, a PhD candidate in the Telecommunications and Networking program. The curriculum was designed by the faculty in the Telecommunications and Networking program.