Innovative service and performance focused handson end-to-end system integration approach in teaching undergraduate Data Communications and Telecommunications

Undergraduate courses for data communications and telecommunications cover services from a network technology perspective more so than they cover network technologies from a service perspective. Thus, critical issues such as interoperability and end-to-end system integration in support of new service and application ideas are left unexplored until post graduation, on-the-job training. Up until now, such explorations have not been easy or practical to execute in an undergraduate laboratory and/or classroom environment. In this paper, we present an innovative approach based on the design and implementation of a hands-on experiment where the students defined a new converged data and voice service and prototyped such a service using emulated network links and nodes. In this experiment, a specific service selected by the students for implementation supports real time remote wireless monitoring of a patient location and vital signs data involving three different locations (control, ambulance dispatch and medical centers). The emulated components involved a GPS device, wireless networks configured for ad hoc and wireless distribution system (WDS) topologies, Fiber Optic Communication system, and wireless/wire line based IP Private Branch Exchange (PBX). The class was successful in demonstrating the features and performance of the prototyped service under different network quality-of-service (QoS) conditions. Also, provided in this paper are the key learning identified both by the students and the instructor/coach perspectives. We believe that the experiment was a success and plan to enhance and apply this approach in future classes.