Wide area network

A wide area newtwork is kind of the opposite of a local area network.

It’s a network that covers a large geographical area. For example, the internet is a WAN because it covers the whole world.

Making up a WAN

a wide area network is really just a bunch of different local area networks that are all connected together.

The internet is just a group of loads of local area networks that are all connected together, and so can all communicate with each other.

How do they connect together?

To connect multiple LANs together to make up a WAN, we can use a router to connect the different LANs together.

The router can route traffic between the different LANs (across a WAN like the internet) so that devices on one LAN can communicate with devices on another LAN.

Transmission medium

The transmission medium is just the wires (or another way) that the routers can use to communicate with each other.

• For long-distance communication, we usually use fibre-optic cables, which can transmti data really quickly over long distances without losing much of the signal.
• For shorter distances, we can use things like copper cables. They’re much slower and can be more prone to network interference than fibre-optic cables, but they can be cheaper in the short-term.
• We can also use wireless communication, such as radio waves, to connect different LANs together. Wireless communication is often wayy slower than using cables.
• Coaxial cables are really old. They’re the same cables that are used to connect landline phones - but they can still be used in some cases to connect to the internet. That said, you would be stuck with dial-up speeds…