Four networks in one analyst's day
In the morning her watch links to her phone. At work her laptop links to the office computers. The council she works for links its offices across the city. And her charts reach a client in another country.
Those are four separate groups of linked devices. What makes them different is size.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| PAN | personal area network: devices around one person | a watch and a phone |
| LAN | local area network: one building or site | an office network |
| MAN | metropolitan area network: a town or city | a council network |
| WAN | wide area network: many places, even countries | the internet |
| Coverage area | the space a network reaches | |
| Medium | what carries the signal: a cable or radio | fibre |
| Network | devices joined so they can share things | |
| Ethernet | the usual wired way to join devices in a building |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can tell a PAN, a LAN, a MAN and a WAN apart by users, media and coverage.
Starter
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Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Three ways to tell networks apart
People sort networks in three ways. First, how many users it has. Second, which medium carries the signal: copper cable, fibre or radio. Third, its coverage area: how far it reaches.
A bigger area usually means more users and more owners.
The four types of network
| Type | Users | Medium | Coverage | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PAN | One person | Bluetooth, USB cable | A few metres | A watch linked to a phone |
| LAN | Tens to hundreds | Ethernet cable and Wi-Fi | A building or site | A data team's office |
| MAN | Thousands | Mostly fibre | A town or city | A council linking its offices |
| WAN | Millions | Fibre, copper and satellite | Countries and the world | The internet |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
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Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.