| As its name suggests, a LAN (local-area network) is a collection of computers connected to each other over a small area such as one floor of a building, a whole building, or perhaps even a campus of local buildings (such as a university or large corporation).
A WAN, on the other hand, is a network of computers (or perhaps even a network of networks) spread over a larger geographic area. That could mean having portions of the network across town, across the country, or on the other side of the world.
In a very technical sense, the Internet is a WAN, although most people tend to think of any particular WAN as being under the control of one organization. Perhaps it would be more appropriate in this context to think of the Internet as a WAN of WANs, but
we won’t because we don’t want to make ourselves crazy.
Unlike LANs, where network components are usually hardwired together (or on a closed wireless connection), WANs typically make use of carriers, such as local and national telephone companies, undersea fiber-optic cables, and/or satellites to connect far-flung
nodes.
Yes, running them can be very expensive, but modern technology also allows for very fast communications speeds over commercial WANs. AT&T, for example, advertises that its potential bandwidth available for corporate use is up to 2GBps (gigabytes per second). |
