WAN Paper

A WAN, also known as a Wide Area Network, is an essential part to bigger corporate networks most government networks and companies with multiple sites as well. A WAN, basically, is 2 or more LANs (Local Area Networks) stuck together and running as one big network over a big geographical area. Although a WAN could cover very small distances, most WANs cover much larger geographical areas such as a country or possibly even the world.

The largest WAN today would technically be the internet or the World Wide Web. The internet is, in short, one giant WAN because it consists of many smaller LANs and servers. Most WANs can cover a fairly large geographical area, but some, such as the World Wide Web can cover the globe. The United States Government has quite a big WAN as a lot of their LANs are in other countries. They need to get data from one place to another almost instantaneously, and this is one of the quickest and easiest ways to be able to do so.

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A data visualization of Wikipedia as part of the W...

RITA network

To be able to get on the internet, a subscriber must go through an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and they will give the subscriber access to the internet for a certain price every month. There are different ways to get access to the internet depending on the geographical location in which you live. A subscriber can go through dial up, which is one of the slowest methods, but it is also one of the most common. There is also DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) through most phone companies if they have access in the area and cable which is usually one of the fastest and most expensive methods to access the internet. The last common method is using a satellite to obtain access. This is usually the...