Wide Area Network
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| Wide Area Network |
The term "wide area network" is used to describe a network that spans multiple geographic locations. Consider an example. A company has two offices, one in London and one in Berlin. Both offices have a LAN. If the company connects these two LANs together using WAN technology, a WAN is created.
The key difference between LANs and WANs is that the company usually doesn’t own WAN infrastructure. A company usually leases WAN services from a service provider.
Frame Relay, ATM and X.25 are different types of WAN technologies. The Internet can also be considered a WAN.
Local Area Network & Metropolitan Area Network
Local Area Network (LAN)
The term "local area network" is commonly used to describe a network of devices in a limited area (a house, office, building…). This type of network is usually capable of achieving high data transfer rate (up to 10 Gbps!) at low cost.
Some of the most popular LAN technologies are Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI. Most LAN networks use TCP/IP to communicate. Twisted-pair cabling is usually used in a LAN.
Examples of this type of network are a small office network inside a single building or your home network.
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| Local Area Network |
Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
The term "metropolitan area network" is used to describe a network in a single metropolitan area, hence the name. This type of network is usually bigger than a LAN and smaller than a WAN. An example of this type of network would be a network that connects two company offices inside the same city.
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| Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) |