What Is Wide Area Network (WAN) And Its Benefits ?

WAN (Wide Area Network) is a common term in networking. To better understand it, you should know about LAN (Local Area Network).

LAN (Local Area Network) is network of a company where the computers can be connected up to limited area. Approximately this network can be configured well up to 100 meters distance. The computers are connected through devices like Switches. These kinds of networks are limited to a building or campus. The users can share the network resource and securities can be implemented only within the network.

WAN (Wide Area Network) connects two or more LANs and other networks so that computers at one location can communicate to the computers at far away some other location. Some Wide Area networks are built by private companies and only works for them and other are built by some Internet Service Providers. WANs are usually built through leased lines and routers are used to connect the network at one place to the network at other place. For example, a company has a network in UK. The company wants to open its office in USA. In order to connect the two offices in UK and USA, we have to install routers at both ends for communication.

We can have unprecedented benefits from WAN. By sitting at one city or country the user can share the resources of the network in other city or country. For example the user can print the document or send an instant message by just one click. The users can use online softwares for communication and can work at the same time on the server database. The benefits are unlimited and it's up to the organization to what extent they need it for them.

We use Wide Area network (WAN) in those cases where LAN cannot be used.
When more than two computers are involved in the application, a switched communication facility is used to enable all the computers to communicate with one other at different times. When the computers are located in different sites, public carries facilities must be used. As a result the network we get is known as wide area network. You can simply define WAN as any form of network (public, private) that covers a wide geographical area is known as WAN. Type of WAN used depends on the nature of network.

For example there are 100 computers in a network and all computers belong to the same site. We want to send data between sites. So one method is to lease transmission lines from the public carriers. We will also install a private switching system at each site. Advantage of wide area network is that we can use this network to connect computers distributed over a large area. As LAN is limited to an office or home and does not provide services for long distance. For exchanging data between sites, services provided by wide are network are sufficient and up to the mark.

A wide area network is a network of computers and terminals that are spread over a relatively large geographical area.