Classification of Networks

[Rooks]

Yesterday, I was getting a WiMax connection set up at my place and while talking with the setup engineer he said that I can connect to the Lan and share with people in my network. He also talked about many things about networks including terms Wan and Man and something like this. I was knowing about the Lan but was not knowing that their also exist Man and other things. Can anybody explain what does these terms mean in Network classification?

[Steve123]

A WAN (Wide Area Network)is a geographically-dispersed collection of LANs. A network device called a router connects LANs to a WAN. In IP networking, the router maintains both a LAN address and a WAN address.

MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) is a network spanning a physical area larger than a LAN but smaller than a WAN, such as a city. A MAN is typically owned an operated by a single entity such as a government body or large corporation.

[Shen]

Metropolitan area networks are smaller than WANs but larger than LANs. Wide Are Network (WAN) spans over a wider area. It is basically a collection of several LANs. The differences between the three basically exist because of each network’s physical area, the technology used and the owners.

[Spyrus]

LAN: (LOCAL AREA NETWORKS)
In this type of networking we mainly use to connect all of our device that is computers locally for eg. in most of the corporate offices, school or college building, we mainly connect our computers locally.

MAN: (METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK)
In this type of networking we connect our computers according to cities for eg. if any office have four branches in all over india it'll connect all of their device acc. to cities in which their offices are placed.

WAN: (WIDE AREA NETWORK)
It is the most preferred networking which are used now days in this network is maintained world wide.