A Wide Area Network (WAN) covers a large geographical area, connecting LANs through leased lines or the internet. Routers and switches direct communication, and VPNs and firewalls protect data. DSL-based networks are popular due to affordability and fast transfer speeds, while dial-up is less common. A WAN allows businesses to centralize productivity and access data remotely.
A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a network that covers a large geographical area, the most common example being the Internet. This is in contrast to the smaller local area networks (LANs) and metropolitan area networks (MANs). LANs are home or office networks, while a MAN might encompass a campus or service residing in a city, such as in a citywide wireless or Wi-Fi network.
The Internet is a public WAN, but there are many ways to create a business model or a private version. A private network is essentially made up of two or more LANs connected to each other. For example, a company with offices in Los Angeles, Texas and New York might have a LAN setup in each office. Through leased telephone lines, all three LANs can communicate with each other, forming a WAN.
Routers are used to direct communications between LANs communicating over a WAN. The router, installed on the leased line, reads the “envelopes” or headers on every data packet that passes through the WAN, sending it to the appropriate LAN. When the packet arrives on the LAN, a device called a switch sends the data packet to the correct machine. Hence, WAN acts as an interface between LANs for long distance communication. One that runs on a leased line is private, as there is no public traffic on the line.
Because leased lines are expensive, many businesses that require a WAN instead use an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide access. In this case, each LAN in the WAN communicates through a standard digital subscriber line (DSL) account. Your DSL Internet account uses an existing phone line by sharing that line with your phone.
A DSL-based WAN uses public Internet lines. To protect it from intrusions, a virtual private network (VPN) is set up. Using a VPN, all traffic remains encrypted as it travels across the internet and is only decrypted at the destination. This is referred to as “tunneling,” because the WAN is creating a secure channel through a public space. Firewalls also block intrusion by hackers. This type of is probably the most popular because it is affordable with great benefits. It operates at fast transfer speeds and is an “always on” connection, providing 24/7 uptime for the WAN.
The least expensive WAN type uses the Internet via a dial-up modem. This isn’t as popular, since the price of DSL has dropped enough to become competitive with dial-up accounts. A dial-up modem only operates at 56 kilobits per second (kbps), while a standard DSL connection is about 20 times faster. Even a dial-up connection cannot share phone service. Finally, dial-up is not an “always on” connection. When offices are in different time zones, this can effectively reduce uptime.
A WAN is an excellent way for businesses to utilize geographically remote resources and centralize productivity. A leased line or cost-effective DSL-based network allows employees, field personnel, and management full or limited access to relevant data 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Considering the negligible cost of DSL today, it often makes business sense.
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