Four networks on one bus ride
On the bus your earbuds link to your phone. Your phone joins the bus Wi-Fi. The bus company controls the Wi-Fi from its office. All of it connects to the whole world.
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 | earbuds and a phone |
| LAN | local area network: one building or site | a school 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
Have a go
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 school network |
| 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
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.