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Intranets

LANS, WANS, and MANS

LANS

The Local Area Network (LAN) is by far the most common type of data network. A LAN serves a local area (typically the area of a floor of a building, but in some cases spanning a distance of several kilometers). Typical installations are in industrial plants, office buildings, college or university campuses, or similar locations. In these locations, it is feasible for the owning Organization to install high quality, high-speed communication links interconnecting nodes. Typical data transmission speeds are one to 100 megabits per second.

WANS

The term Wide Area Network (WAN) usually refers to a network which covers a large geographical area, and use communications circuits to connect the intermediate nodes. A major factor impacting WAN design and performance is a requirement that they lease communications circuits from telephone companies or other communications carriers. Transmission rates are typically 2 Mbps, 34 Mbps, 45 Mbps, 155 Mbps, 625 Mbps (or sometimes considerably more).

Numerous WANs have been constructed, including public packet networks, large corporate networks, military networks, banking networks, stock brokerage networks, and airline reservation networks. Some WANs are very extensive, spanning the globe, but most do not provide true global coverage. Organizations supporting WANs using the Internet Protocol are known as Network Service Providers (NSPs). These form the core of the Internet.

MANS

A MAN typically covers an area of between 5 and 50 km diameter. Many MANs cover an area the size of a city, although in some cases MANs may be as small as a group of buildings or considerably larger.

A MAN is not generally owned by a single organization. The MAN, its communications links and equipment are generally owned by either a consortium of users or by a single network provider who sells the service to the users. A MAN often acts as a high speed network to allow sharing of regional resources. It is also frequently used to provide a shared connection to other networks using a link to a WAN.