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Reviewer: Vladimir Botchev

Error correction coding is a fairly complex subject, and well-written material on error correction coding is always more than welcome from the large community of students and practitioners. This book is, without a shadow of doubt, one of the finest on the subject of trellis coding; the turbo coding material in it, however, is less detailed than one would assume for a book with the term "turbo coding" in its title. Despite the fact that the authors proclaim their book to "provide practical grounding," it does so much less than less theoretically inclined books, for example Lee's book series on block and convolutional codes [1,2]. Indeed, without a firm theoretical background, one can hardly pursue a valuable research work in the error coding field (although turbo coding discovery is, in a certain sense, a counterexample). Many practicing engineers, however, need to rapidly develop and test coding solutions. These professionals do not necessarily have the background in information theory needed for deep understanding of all aspects of error correction coding, nor do they have the time to spend getting such background, and then experiment. This book does not truly address these needs; it is much more academic than practical. For a crash course on trellis and turbo coding, with immediate practical impact, readers would be better served by Lee's book set, or something similar. This book could be useful in such instances as parallel reading, and for getting a firm theoretical knowledge if one is desired (which is highly recommended). For students and instructors of digital communications, however, this book is a gold mine. Not only does it delve into all aspects of classic convolutional coding and trellis coding, but it also explores the latter's links to block codes (also done in Lee's book), provides a chapter on low density parity check (LDPC) codes (perhaps for the first time in a book since 1963), and presents a good introduction to turbo coding. And again, for turbo coding, the more practically-oriented specialist would do better to turn first to Barbulescu's turbo coding tutorials [3,4], and also to his new e-book, What a wonderful turbo world [5]. In conclusion, for a student or instructor in the field of digital communications or related disciplines, this book is a must. For practicing engineers, it is highly recommended as a background reference. Online Computing Reviews Service