4  Wide Area Networks

Figure 4

• Very large organisations require the use of multiple LANs to allow their staff to do business in different parts of a country, or even in other countries.
• The individual networks must be connected together to allow the staff to communicate and share information. This creates a type of network called a Wide Area Network (WAN).
• Once again it is the responsibility of ISPs to provide the connections between the LANs, although the devices involved will be far more powerful than those used in SOHO networks.
• Some organisations may even create a WAN using their own devices.
• Because a WAN is a collection of LANs connected together over large distances, the Internet itself is considered to be the largest WAN in existence.