$119
Introduction to Broadband Converged IP Telecom is the first course in the CTA-2026 Certification Package, providing a comprehensive introduction to broadband converged IP telecom.
Specifically designed for non-engineering professionals, this course is a first pass through the topics, explaining the fundamental ideas, jargon, equipment and technologies, the services that are sold, the players, where the money is, and how it all fits together.
Course Lessons
1. Course Introduction
2. Convergence
3. Broadband
4. Model of Today's Converged Telecom Network
5. The Network Core
6. Network Protocols: Ethernet, IP and MPLS
7. Network Access: The Last Mile
8. Anatomy of a Service
9. Services: Residential, Business and Wholesale
10. Network Equipment
11. Carrier Network Interconnect
Based on the first chapter of Teracom's famous BOOT CAMP, getting the week of training started with a comprehensive introduction to all of the different aspects of the modern converged IP telecom network. Totally up to date.
This course is the first course in the CTNS Certification Package. Purchase this item to get the individual course.
Course page with full description
The Unlimited Plan gives you unlimited repeats, with no expiration and no monthly fees. One-time payment. Take as long as you like. Jump in and out of lessons, refresh your knowledge in the future.
A course completion certificate is awarded upon passing the course exam.
Teracom is the leader in telecommunications training. In business since 1992, we supply this training to the US government under our GSA schedule contract, which means pre-approved quality and pricing. We're so confident of the quality of this training, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
$119
In this course, you’ll build a solid base of knowledge in fundamental telecommunication concepts, beginning with a model for understanding circuits and information communication, client-server and peer-to-peer communication, analog vs. digital and how bits are represented by pulses, what modems do, and multiplexing: different methods of sharing circuits, and finishing with an analogy illustrating the idea behind transmitting large files in small packets.
Course Lessons
1. Communication Circuit Model
2. Terminals, Clients, Servers and Peers
3. Analog and Digital
4. Bits in Frequency Channels: Modems and Modulation
5. Frequency-Division Multiplexing
6. Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)
7. Statistical Time Division Multiplexing
8. Packet Network: The Postal Service
Based on Teracom’s famous Course 101, tuned and refined over the course of 20 years of instructor-led training, we’ll cut through the jargon to demystify telecom fundamentals, explaining the jargon and buzzwords, the underlying ideas, and how it all works together… in plain English.
A course completion certificate is awarded upon passing the course exam.
Course Outline
1. Communication Circuit Model
DTE-DCE circuit model: coding then representing information on circuits
2. Terminals, Clients, Servers and Peers
Communication between different types of terminal equipment
3. Analog and Digital
The problem with analog transmission; representing 1s and 0s with pulses
4. Bits in Frequency Channels: Modems and Modulation
How modems represent 1s and 0s using ASK, FSK, PSK, QPSK and QAM
5. Frequency-Division Multiplexing
Sharing a circuit by implementing many small frequency channels
6. Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)
Sharing a circuit by taking turns in time in a strict order
7. Statistical Time Division Multiplexing
Sharing a circuit on demand with packets
8. Packet Network: The Postal Service
The very fundamental idea of how large files are tranferred in small packets using an analogy of the Postal Service
Teracom is the leader in telecommunications training. In business since 1992, we supply this training to the US government under our GSA schedule contract, which means pre-approved quality and pricing. We're so confident of the quality of this training, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
$119
In this comprehensive course, you’ll build a solid base of knowledge in networking fundamentals. We'll begin with serial and parallel point-to-point circuits, then identify the need for link addressing and access control on circuits with multiple stations, LANs and how the stations on a LAN form a broadcast domain. We'll understand the need for framing and error control to transmit data, and how this is implemented with MAC frames and MAC addresses.
Then we'll define a network, and how it is implemented with WAN circuits, routers and IP network addresses as the basis of routing decisions. Next, we'll understand how carrier packet networks are used to implement WAN circuits, the relationship between packets and frames, the IP address on the packet and how the MAC address changes as the packet is forwarded across a network. We'll finish with an overview of IPv4 and IPv6 packet formats, the need for a transport protocol and how TCP is used for reliability, and UDP is used for streaming, and what port numbers are and how they are used. The course is completed with an introduction to MPLS, the traffic management system used on the core of big networks.
Course Lessons
1. Point-to-Point Circuits: Serial and Parallel
2. Multidrop Circuits: Point to Multipoint
3. LANs and Broadcast Domains
4. Framing and Error Control Requirements
5. Frames & MAC Addresses
6. Networks, Routers and IP Addresses
7. Carrier Packet Network Services
8. Packets vs. Frames
9. IP Address vs. MAC Address: SFO-NYC via AT&T
10. IP Packets
11. TCP, UDP and Port Numbers
12. MPLS Labels
Based on Teracom’s famous Course 101, tuned and refined over the course of 20 years of instructor-led training, we’ll cut through the jargon to demystify network fundamentals, explaining the jargon and buzzwords, the underlying ideas, and how it all works together… in plain English.
A course completion certificate is awarded upon passing the course exam.
Course Outline
1. Point-to-Point Circuits: Serial and Parallel
How serial is a type of Time-Division Multiplexing, and implemented in parallel to increase capacity.
2. Multidrop Circuits: Point to Multipoint
Master-slave or "unbalanced" communication links, and the need for link addressing and access control when there are multiple stations on a circuit.
3. LANs and Broadcast Domains
"Balanced" communication links, where all stations are equal. How the computers connected by a LAN form a broadcast domain. How serial is a type of Time-Division Multiplexing, and implemented in parallel to increase capacity.
4. Framing and Error Control Requirements
Why framing and error control are needed to transmit data. We'll briefly discuss the old "asynchronous" start-stop-parity method, what asynchronous really means, and areas for improvement.
5. Frames & MAC Addresses
The method used for framing, link addressing and error control on the customer premise LAN, on the access circuit, and in the carrier network core.
6. Networks, Routers and IP Addresses
The definition of a network: the need to make route decisions, by a router, using IP addresses as the basis of making route decisions. Identification of WAN services as the expensive part of the story.
7. Carrier Packet Network Services
Using a carrier packet network, whether it is the Internet or carefully-controlled carrier circuits, as the most cost-effective and flexible way of implementing WAN circuits.
8. Packets vs. Frames
How packets are carried in frames. The relationship between the MAC address on a frame and the IP address on a packet. Does one packet fit exactly inside one frame? What protocol segments a big file into small packets?
9. IP Address vs. MAC Address: SFO-NYC via AT&T
Understanding the IP address on a packet vs. the MAC address on a frame, and how it changes from one hop to the next across a network.
10. IP Packets
An overview of the structure of IP packets, and both the IPv4 and IPv6 packet headers.
11. TCP, UDP and Port Numbers
Why a transport protocol is required for communication across an unreliable IP packet network. How TCP works, and why UDP is used for live phone calls. What port numbers are and how they are used.
12. MPLS Labels
A brief introduction to MPLS, and how it is used to label packets as belonging to a traffic class for management of traffic in the network core.
Teracom is the leader in telecommunications training. In business since 1992, we supply this training to the US government under our GSA schedule contract, which means pre-approved quality and pricing. We're so confident of the quality of this training, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
$119
The Internet, which started out as a way for researchers to exchange short ASCII text messages between universities and research institutes containing valuable information like "how's the weather there?", is now worldwide converged broadband communications.
It's still used to ask other people about the weather, but is now able to stream Good Morning America in 4K to watch on your toaster in the morning if you like.
In this module, we'll start at the beginning, with the fundamentals of the Internet design then build one idea on top of another with the Inter-Net protocol then ISPs, DNS, the Web, HTML and HTTP, Web Hosting, Cloud Computing and finishing with AI Data Centers.
Course Lessons
1. Introduction - The Internet, Cloud Computing and Data Centers
2. A Network to Survive Nuclear War
3. The Inter-Net Protocol
4. Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
5. Domain Name System (DNS)
6. The Web, HTML and IoT
7. Web Servers and HTTP
8. Web Hosting, Web Services and Cloud Computing
9. Data Centers
Based on Teracom’s famous Course 101, tuned and refined over the course of 20 years of instructor-led training, we’ll cut through the jargon to demystify network fundamentals, explaining the jargon and buzzwords, the underlying ideas, and how it all works together… in plain English.
A course completion certificate is awarded upon passing the course exam.
Course Outline
1. Introduction - The Internet, Cloud Computing and Data Centers
2. Network to Survive Nuclear War
Our favorite urban myth, that the Internet was a network designed to be able to survive a nuclear war, is a good way of understanding the design fundamentals of the Internet: TCP for reliable communications over an unreliable IP packet network, and frequent router table updates to recover from circuits going dead.
3. The Inter-Net Protocol
How it started with taxpayers' dollars being used to pay for dedicated lines between universities and research institutes. The need for a common network addressing scheme and packet format that resulted in IP: IP addresses and address classes, IP packets, IP routers, IP routing tables and the IP packet routing algorithm.
4. Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
No need to go to a university to get onto the Internet today, commercial companies provide access to it from your home, business, and pocket. What an ISP actually is, what they do, and how they get your packets delivered to people in Timbuktu. How ISPs connect in Internet Exchanges with transit or peering agreements.
5. Domain Name System (DNS)
The telephone books of the Internet (for those who know what a telephone book is): A collection of line items that associate a name to a number; in this case, not last name, first name, street address to a phone number like in the old days, but domain name to IP address. How DNS servers resolve a domain name in an URL to the IP address of a server so you can start sending packets to it. URLs and URIs.
6. The Web, HTML and IoT
How the browser initiates communications by asking the server for a file of HTML code from the server, downloads the content of the file and turns it into graphics on your screen. Browsers also upload form data to servers for processing. Things that have no screens also upload data to servers.
7. Web Servers and HTTP
The HTTP protocol and the three commands: GET, POST and OK. How they're used to ask for the file, and how the server returns it in HTTP messages over a TCP connection between HTTP client and HTTP server over the Internet. How a port number is used to identify a particular application. How the HTTP server application running on a computer listens on port 80, and the HTTPS server app listens on port 443.
8. Web Hosting, Web Services and Cloud Computing
Finding hardware: processor, memory and disk space on which to run an HTTP server, starting with do-it-yourself, then basic web site hosting, virtual machines, very sophisticated virtualization software that makes sites available around the world, and the hundreds of types of resources, toolkits and programs available from AWS and the like as their "cloud" service offerings.
9. Data Centers
The buildings that house the computers the server and its back end run on. Halls full of rows of racks with shelves, each holding a computer. Where data centers are located and why: electricity cost, cooling cost, land cost and proximity to other data centers, Internet Exchanges and fiber routes. NSA's Utah Data Center where a record if not copy of everything you've done over the Internet is stored for future analysis. The enormous amounts of electricity AI data centers need, and its effect on residential electricity prices.
Teracom is the leader in telecommunications training. In business since 1992, we supply this training to the US government under our GSA schedule contract, which means pre-approved quality and pricing. We're so confident of the quality of this training, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
