Digital Communications by John G. Proakis

The Reference for researchers in telecommunication
Review written by: Choc From
This book is a reference for researchers in telecommunication. With more than 30 pages of references, this book is an excellent review of the principal publications in telecommunication.

This is not a book for students !

A lot of formulas, very little insight
Review written by: Electrical Engineer From Holmdel, NJ United States
The author has, maybe, good knowledge of the material, but little contact with reality. A lot of formulas, piled up, offer practically no insight. Contrast this with the book of Sklar, "Digital Communciations". Proakis offers a fake "advanced" mathematical level, that might impress an ignorant beginning graduate student, but removes any chance of understanding the material because of the plethora of useless pictures, formulas and words.
The material of the book could have been presented in a quarter of the space. It is hard to imagine a poorer writing style.

worst textbook ever
Review written by: Louis W. Blessing From
I took a graduate class at the University of Cincinnati and they used this book (it was round 2 for me as I had Communication Systems with his book that was co-authored by Salehi). Two classes + two Proakis books = brain hemorrhage. I will say that if you are mathematically strong doing well in these courses won't pose a problem. However, the amount of rereading needed to hammer in the concepts is overwhelming. It wouldn't have to be this way if he put in a lot of examples. Also, most of the problems are proofs or very complex and for that reason I noticed that neither of the professors that I had used problems from the book on exams. One exam was forced to become a take home as the results were so terrible and the other was a gram schmidt problem coupled with a small proof on bandpass signals. Some advice is in order. Follow these steps if you want to learn the material:

1.) Take and ace a Random Processes class. This will get you the background you need to blow through chapters 2 and 4 of Digital Communications by Proakis.

2.) Over break or during free time pick up the Communication Systems Engineering book and read through chapter 7 to hammer home chapter 5 of Digital Communications.

3.) Invest in a solution manual if you can find it. This way one can try ALL of the problems in the text and really learn the material.

As a final note, if you can master this course then there is absolutely no graduate class that will stand in your way. Any wireless or DSP class will seem like calc I after it.

Mediocre
Review written by: ptvn From middletown, CT
I have an earlier version of this book and I also had Dr. Proakis as a professor in graduate school. Dr. Proakis has a nack of making something simple into something complex. His teaching style is similar. I always thought com theory was very difficult until I read books by others that discussed the same topics in a more cogent and lucid style.

3.64 lbs of Pure Spirtual Abuse
Review written by: A Reader From California USA
Someone with a decent grasp of com-theory giving this book five stars is beyond my comprehension. It provides instructors all the benefits of deception with virtually no risk of being deceived themselves. Even taking into account intellectual deception and cultural coercion due to a sense of professional self-preservation and survival, the use or praise of this text is beyond justification. Unless someone has the emotional intelligence of a turnip or purely enjoys seeing students in a state of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), there is no way anybody should be saying "I love it" (official Amazonian meaning of 5 stars) about this text.

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Digital Communications