LANs, Local Area Networks, and WANs, Wide Area Networks, were designed to allow computers to communicate with each other to share files and information. As network requirements have continued to grow, with video becoming an extremely popular medium to transmit across a network, so too have the sophistication and speed of LAN and WAN technologies. However, both are different in their operation therefore consideration needs to be paid to different factors that help to decide if either of these are going to be used.
Geographical coverage
A LAN (Local Area Network) covers a small area such as a University campus, a business premises, or even as small as a home network. A WAN (Wide Area Network) covers a much larger geographical scope such as a British country or an American state. WANS are simply LANS connected together using specialised WAN hardware and WAN technologies.
Connectivity
To create a LAN, workstations and printers are connected to a switch using Ethernet cables. The switch uses algorithms to detect and store details of the devices connected to the switch uses this information to channel data packets out of the correct switch port. The cables used to connect the workstations to switches can be coaxial, copper or fibre. There is a steady increase in the uptake of fibre optic for LAN connectivity. Computer accessories such as printers can be shared by workstations in the same LAN but not on other LANs. Each LAN in a WAN therefore will need a separate set of hardware resources.
