What is a WAN?
Importance and Advantages of WANs
How computers are connected together via WAN
WAN virtual circuits
Devices used in a WAN
What is a WAN?
A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a computer network used to exchange information over a wide geographical area. It can be situated within several countries or even worldwide. Larger than a LAN, it can use phone lines or satellites as transmission media. In some cases, linking together some LANs forms a WAN.
Importance and Advantages of WANs
Two great advantages of WAN are allowing secure and fast data transmission between the different nodes in the network. The data transmission is also reliable and inexpensive.
Big organizations and companies, which have several branches all over the world, are the ones who greatly benefit from WANs, as WANs enable them to easily communicate with their partners or employees around the globe. WAN have had a great impact on e-business, which has became so popular in this Internet age.
Most of the time, public telecommunications companies in different countries manage, control and maintain WANs. They also provide WAN users with various services such as leased lines.
Different ways to connect computers within a WAN
Point-to-point connection: Depends on leased lines to connect two far apart computers in a network. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. Point-to-point
