"This area is ambiguous in nature and the course will teach how to use these devices and how they communicate with other devices. There are sequences of applications in this area, and we will train students to understand the networks and software engineering."

La Trobe also offers a combined Masters of Telecommunications and Network Engineering.

"It is more about convergence of these areas -- the boundaries are getting a bit blurred and people need to know about both the software side, protocols and designing them and the hardware," he said.

The combined Masters attracts people with an engineering background and some with computer science, whereas the other courses are designed for people with a computer science background.

All of the La Trobe's courses are Web assisted; all the material is online but each unit has a couple of hours of face-to-face teaching each week. "We try to put them late in the afternoon which makes it possible for students to do them after work," he said.