March 19 | Materials for the fifth lecture are now online. |
March 15 | Materials for the third exercise session are now online. |
March 13 | Materials for the fourth lecture are now online. |
March 8 | Materials for the second exercise session are now online. |
March 3 | Materials for the third lecture are now online. |
March 1 | Materials for the first exercise session are now online. |
Feb 25 | Materials for the second lecture are now online. |
Feb 19 | Materials for the first lecture are now online. |
Feb 17 | Lecture starts next Monday. See you all in HG E1.2! |
Feb 6 | This year's lecture and project plan is now available. |
Jan 11 | Happy new year! More info on this year's course is coming soon! In the meantime, you can access the material from 2022 here. |
Jan 11 | Link to the course catalogue: Communication Networks (227-0120-00L). |
Instructor: Prof. Laurent Vanbever
Research group: Networked Systems Group
Contact:
Assistants:
Chat room: #comm-net-23 (Please read the Instructions)
Lecture: Monday 10 am–12 pm in HG E 1.2
Exercise sessions: Thursday 10 am–12 pm in HG E 1.2
Remote participation: Recordings
It is hard to think of a technology that has more changed the way we live than the Internet. From the very way we communicate, access and exchange information, shop, pay, move, entertain, maintain friendship. At the same time, the Internet is inexorably growing, at an always faster pace: from 3 billion of connected hosts in 2015 to an estimated 4 billion in 2019.
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
The course is an introductory one, meaning no prior networking background is needed. The course will include some easy programming assignments in Python.
The class will be graded 70% based on the final exam and 30% based on continuous performance assessments. The continuous performance assessments will consist in two graded group projects. The first project counts for 20% and the second for 10% of the final grade. If a student does not do/submit a project, he/she will receive a grade of 1.0 for the corresponding project. Students repeating the course can decide at the beginning of the semester if they want to keep the previous grades of their continuous performance assessments (more details). The final exam is a written open book exam. You will not be tested on material we didn't cover during the lesson. All written material (books, notes, lab exercises etc.) is allowed; all electronic devices are prohibited, except for (non-connected) calculators. The exam will be in English.
We will use the textbook Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (6th Edition) by Kurose and Ross as a reference and as a source of examples. Older versions of the book are fine too but sections number won't necessarily match.
In addition to the lectures, there will be a set of exercises (every Thursday) along with two projects to be done in groups of maximum 3 students (the composition of which will be decided by the students themselves at the beginning of the first project).
Each project will be available online and will be introduced in class along with instructions on the report and on the specific grading scheme.
You should submit your work on an assignment (via your GitLab repository, according to the assignment instructions) before its due time. All assignments are due by 11:59pm on their selected days. If you submit your work late, we will give you credit for it according to this scale:
Important If you don't have a laptop, please us at the beginning of the course.
The final exam is a written open book exam. You will not be tested on material we didn't cover during the lesson. All written material (books, notes, lab exercises etc.) is allowed; all electronic devices are prohibited, except for (non-connected) calculators. The exam will be in English.
We provide the previous exams (without solutions):