Categories of Networks

There are three primary types of networks including local area networks, metropolitan area networks and wide area networks. Here we differentiate them by their size, ownership, distance and structure.

Local Area Network (LAN) :
A local area network is a private network having links of devices within a campus,building or office. A LAN can have two or more systems connected or devices i.e printers in a office. It also depend on the technology used in the networking.
In LAN we basically share data or sometimes  hardware. The restrictions can be used on some particular software or hardware for the usage, by the number of  users. It also depends which topology and transmission medium is used.
LANs have data rate from 4 to 6 Mbps range. Now a days its increasing and may be 100 Mbps depending on the speed of systems.

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) :
A metropolitan area network is more widely can be used. It can be used in a entire city. It may be a single network or it can be combination of some LANs. A MAN can be used for a company having many offices in a city.
A MAN is owned by a company. Some service provider can also provide the MAN to a company by switched  multi megabit data services (SMDS).

Wide Area Network (WAN) :
A wide area network provides a long distance transmission of data. It may be overr large geographical areas thay may be acountry, a continent or whole world.
A WAN can use public or private communication devices or usually in combination. It can be on unlimited number of miles.

Internetworks:
When two or more networks are connected, they become an internetwork or internet. The networks are connected by internetworking devices i.e routers,gateways.
The term internet is a generic term used to mean an interconnection of networks.
The Internet is the name of a specific worldwide network.

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