Network types

There are a few types of networks which exist in today’s society. An increasingly common network is the PAN network. PAN or personal access network is a small network in which devices usually phones communicate with each other. This is the “Bluetooth” on your phone, computer and even your PS3 controllers. It is a small simple way of devices communicating with each other over a very small distance.
The most common network type you will come across is the local area network (LAN).This is a network of computers connected by cables or Wi-Fi. They are able to send large amounts of data and because it is usually an office or a house it is quite quick because traffic tends to be lower than bigger networks.

The next size up is called a MAN. A metro area network is network of LAN’s connected together over a city. A MAN also contains Backbone servers which act as a gateway to other cities.
Getting fairly large we come to a wide area network (WAN). These contain many MAN’s connected together over a continent and enable the transfer of data over the continent.

Finally we come across a network where the internet is located. A global area network (GAN), is a massive network spread over the entire Earth which connects many WAN’s together and enables people to access information from all over the world quite easily.
On GAN’s there are two types of networks the internet and extranets. The internet is global network consisting of cables and severs allowing free access to data anywhere in the world. An extranet is like the internet but require a password and username (generally can also be email among other things) to access the stored information.
One thing not mentioned here yet are intranets. They are local area networks which are not connected to any outside sources and one must be in the local area network to access the information.