Course syllabus

Course-PM

EEN115 EEN115 Introduction to communication networks lp3 VT25 (7.5 hp)

Course is offered by the department of Electrical Engineering. A detailed Course PM can be found here. 

Contact details

Examiner and Lecturer

Marija Furdek, furdek@chalmers.se 

Teaching Assistants

Zicong Jiang, zicongj@chalmers.se Lead TA. Responsible for exercises and quizzes.

Ehsan Etezadi, ehsanet@chalmers.se Responsible for the group project.

E2 Student Administration Office

Emma Tykeson, Phone 072 242 3689, emma.tykeson@chalmers.se 

Student representatives

Jun Cao, junca@student.chalmers.se 

Navid Seyed Elyasi, elyasi@chalmers.se 

Ella Dahlström, ella@knatten.eu 

Kimia Safarihamid kimias@chalmers.se

Rasmus Gyllenhammar rasmusgy@chalmers.se

Guest lecturers

Ognjen Dobrijevic, ABB, Sweden

Jonas Hansryd, Ericsson AB, Sweden

Anders Lindgren and Stefan Melin, Telia AB, Sweden

Paolo Monti, Chalmers, E2, mpaolo@chalmers.se

Course purpose

The course aims at introducing the fundamental networking and security, concepts, problems, and applications which are typical of modern communication infrastructures. The course will provide a broad horizontal overview of the area, highlighting the main concepts, technologies, and challenges when looking at the design, operation, and trustworthiness of communication networks.

The content of the course is listed below. A detailed week plan will be available on the course web.

• Network architectures, modeling and performance evaluation
  • Core, access and datacenter networks
  • Network throughput, latency, availability
• Network switching and routing
  • Flow and congestion control
  • Routing and resource assignment
• Network control and management
  • GMPLS, SDN
• Network service virtualization
• Network security and privacy
  • Attacks at the physical and upper network layers
  • Access control and cryptography
  • Networks and distributed ledger technologies

Schedule

TimeEdit

Course literature

Each lecture has been prepared based on a combination of chapters from the course literature listed below. In the weekly plan, the chapters relevant for each lecture are noted with the surname of the first author of the book and chapter number (e.g., Cowley Ch 2).

Main text book:

J. Cowley, Communications and Networking, Second edition, Springer, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4471-4356-7. Available through Chalmers Library and online at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4471-4357-4

Parts of the following books will also be used:

S. Kasera, N. Narang, S. Narang, Communication networks: Principles and practice, McGraw Hill, 2007, ISBN: 9780070583542. Available online (when logged in through Chalmers) at https://www.accessengineeringlibrary.com/content/book/9780070583542

D. Bertsekas, R. Gallagher, Data networks, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall, 1992, ISBN 0132009161. Freely available online: https://web.mit.edu/dimitrib/www/datanets.html

F. Halsall, Computer networking and the Internet, 5th edition, Pearson Education Limited, 2005, ISBN 0321263588. Available online: https://myethiolectures.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/computer-networking-and-the-internet-halsall-fred.pdf

J. M. Simmons, Optical network design and planning, 2014, Springer, ISBN 978-3-319-33097-6. Available online (when logged in through Chalmers) at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-05227-4

S. R. Ali, Next generation and advanced network reliability analysis, 2019, Springer, ISBN: 978-3-030-01646-3.  Available online at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-01647-0

Mukherjee et al, Handbook of optical networks, 2020, Springer, ISBN: 978-3-030-16249-8. Available online  (when logged in through Chalmers) at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-16250-4

S.F. Hasan, Emerging Trends in Communication Networks, 2014, Springer, ISBN: 978-3-319-07388-0. Available online  (when logged in through Chalmers) at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-07389-7

M. Vaezi, J. Zhang, Cloud mobile networks, 2017, Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-54496-0. Available online at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-54496-0

W. Stallings, Network security essentials: Applications and standards, 4th edition, Prentice Hall. Available online.

Course design

Description of the course's learning activities; how they are implemented and how they are connected. This is the student's guide to navigating the course. Do not forget to give the student advice on how to learn as much as possible based on the pedagogy you have chosen. Often, you may need to emphasize concrete things like how often they should enter the learning space on the learning platform, how different issues are shared between supervisors, etc.

Provide a plan for

• lectures
• exervises
• laboratory work
• projects
• supervision
• feedback
• seminars

Should contain a description of how the digital tools (Canvas and others) should be used and how they are organized, as well as how communication between teachers and students takes place (Canvas, e-mail, other).

Do not forget to describe any resources that students need to use, such as lab equipment, studios, workshops, physical or digital materials.

You should be clear how missed deadlines and revisions are handled.

Changes made since the last occasion

The course comprises lectures, exercises, a project and two computer exercises. 

Please see written Course-PM for details about lectures, project, exercises, exam, and grading rules.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.

https://www.chalmers.se/en/education/your-studies/find-course-and-programme-syllabi/course-syllabus/EEN115/?acYear=2025/2026

If the course is a joint course (Chalmers and Göteborgs Universitet) you should link to both syllabus (Chalmers and Göteborgs Universitet).

Examination form

• Written exam. Maximum score: 50. Compulsory. Passing requirement: 25 points.
• Project. Maximum score: 30. Compulsory (no minimum score).
• Computer exercises. Maximum score: 15. Compulsory (no minimum score).
• Quizzes. Maximum score: 5. Not compulsory.