What is a WAN ?
A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a network that spans a large geographical area, the most common example being the Internet. A WAN is contrasted to smaller local area networks (LANs) and metropolitan area networks (MANs). LANs are home or office networks, while a MAN might encompass a campus or service residents of a city, such as in a citywide wireless or WiFi network. The Internet is a public WAN, but there are many ways to create a business model or private WAN. A private WAN is essentially two or more LANs connected to each other. For example, a company with offices in Los Angeles, Texas and New York might have a LAN setup at each office. Through leased telephone lines, all three LANs can communicate with each other, forming a WAN. Routers are used to direct communications between LANs communicating on a WAN. The router, installed on the leased line, reads the “envelopes” or headers on each packet of data that passes through the WAN, sending it to the proper LAN. When the packet arrive
A wide area network (WAN) is a geographically dispersed telecommunications network. The term distinguishes a broader telecommunication structure from a local area network (LAN). A wide area network may be privately owned or rented, but the term usually connotes the inclusion of public (shared user) networks. An intermediate form of network in terms of geography is a metropolitan area network (MAN).
The wide area network, often referred to as a WAN, is a communications network that makes use of existing technology to connect local computer networks into a larger working network that may cover both national and international locations. This is in contrast to both the local area network and the metropolitan area network, which provides communication within a restricted geographic area. Here is how the wide area network functions, and why it is so important to communications today.
