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What's The Difference Between A Local Area Network (LAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), & Wide Area Network (WAN)?A Local Area Network (LAN) provides a quick, short link between network devices. Most homes and offices have a LAN which allows personal computers and workstations to easily share data between one another at a high rate of transfer. A LAN also enables users to access other devices, such as printers, modems, or local servers. They are privately owned and managed and provide service
to relatively small geographical areas. A LAN can serve as few as one user or as many as thousands. Since a LAN covers a small area, noise and error are minimized. These networks are larger than a LAN, but smaller than a WAN, generally providing communications via fiber optic cable, and mostly works within Layer 2, or the data link layer, of the OSI model. Usually, a MAN does not belong to any
particular organization, but rather a consortium of users or a single network provider which takes charge of the service, owns its hardware and other equipment, and sells access to the network to end users. In this regard, levels of service must be discussed and agreed upon between each user and the MAN provider. Schedule Your Personalized Demo Led By Our Expert Team Post navigationA wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits.[1] Businesses, as well as schools and government entities, use wide area networks to relay data to staff, students, clients, buyers and suppliers from various locations around the world. In essence, this mode of telecommunication allows a business to effectively carry out its daily function regardless of location. The Internet may be considered a WAN.[2] Design options[edit]The textbook definition of a WAN is a computer network spanning regions, countries, or even the world.[3][4] However, in terms of the application of communication protocols and concepts, it may be best to view WANs as computer networking technologies used to transmit data over long distances, and between different networks. This distinction stems from the fact that common local area network (LAN) technologies operating at lower layers of the OSI model (such as the forms of Ethernet or Wi-Fi) are often designed for physically proximal networks, and thus cannot transmit data over tens, hundreds, or even thousands of miles or kilometres. WANs are used to connect LANs and other types of networks together so that users and computers in one location can communicate with users and computers in other locations. Many WANs are built for one particular organization and are private. Others, built by Internet service providers, provide connections from an organization's LAN to the Internet. WANs are often built using leased lines. At each end of the leased line, a router connects the LAN on one side with a second router within the LAN on the other. Because leased lines can be very expensive, instead of using leased lines, WANs can also be built using less costly circuit switching or packet switching methods. Network protocols including TCP/IP deliver transport and addressing functions. Protocols including Packet over SONET/SDH, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay are often used by service providers to deliver the links that are used in WANs. Academic research into wide area networks can be broken down into three areas: mathematical models, network emulation, and network simulation. Performance improvements are sometimes delivered via wide area file services or WAN optimization. Private networks[edit]Of the approximately four billion addresses defined in IPv4, about 18 million addresses in three ranges are reserved for use in private networks. Packets addressed in these ranges are not routable on the public Internet; they are ignored by all public routers. Therefore, private hosts cannot directly communicate with public networks, but require network address translation at a routing gateway for this purpose. Reserved private IPv4 network ranges[5]
Since two private networks, e.g., two branch offices, cannot directly communicate via the public Internet, the two networks must be bridged across the Internet via a virtual private network (VPN) or other form of IP tunnel that encapsulates packets, including their headers containing the private addresses, for transmission across the public network. Additionally, encapsulated packets may be encrypted to secure their data. Connection technology[edit]Many technologies are available for wide area network links. Examples include circuit-switched telephone lines, radio wave transmission, and optical fiber. New developments have successively increased transmission rates. In ca. 1960, a 110 bit/s line was normal on the edge of the WAN, while core links of 56 or 64 kbit/s were considered fast. Today, households are connected to the Internet with dial-up, asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), cable, WiMAX, cellular network or fiber. The speeds that people can currently use range from 28.8 kbit/s through a 28K modem over a telephone connection to speeds as high as 100 Gbit/s using 100 Gigabit Ethernet. The following communication and networking technologies have been used to implement WANs.
AT&T conducted trials in 2017 for business use of 400-gigabit Ethernet.[6] Researchers Robert Maher, Alex Alvarado, Domaniç Lavery, and Polina Bayvel of University College London were able to increase networking speeds to 1.125 terabits per second.[7] Christos Santis, graduate student Scott Steger, Amnon Yariv, Martin and Eileen Summerfield developed a new laser that potentially quadruples transfer speeds with fiber optics.[8] See also[edit]
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Which of the following is a network that spans a city and its major suburb?A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a network that spans a metropolitan area, usually a city and its major suburbs. Its geographic scope falls between a WAN and a LAN. MANs sometimes provide Internet connectivity for local area networks in a metropolitan region.
What type of network can span continents?A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network or computer network that extends over a large geographical distance/place.
Which type of network covers a large geographic distance such as a state a country or even the entire world?WAN(Wide Area Network)
It spans over very large-distances such as a country, continent or even the whole globe. Two widely separated computers can be connected very easily using WAN. For Example, the Internet. A WAN may include various Local and Metropolitan Area Network.
Which of the following networks spans a large geographic area such as a state province or country similar to the Internet?A WAN (Wide Area Network) is a computer network that spans a large geographic area, such as a city, a state, or even a country.
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