What is WAN (Wide Area Network) – Definition, Uses and Types

A wide area network (WAN), also known as a metropolitan network, is a computer network that covers a very large geographical region, typically including most if not all of the country or countries in which a business operates. WANs can be used for local or regional connectivity or for global connectivity. Wide Area Networks (WANs) are usually used by large companies or organizations and are heavily used in the business and financial markets. The most common types of Wide Area Networks are the Wide Area Network (WAN), Local Area Network (LAN), Linked Local Area Network (LLAN), and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Wide Area Networks has several advantages over other types of networks, especially for businesses that need high bandwidth, fast accessibility, and security. These types of networks are:

Wide-Area-Network routers large geographical areas provide fast internet access. It reduces the cost of hardware and software. WAN requires less maintenance than a LAN because the overhead associated with managing traffic to and from a router is low. In a Wide Area Network, traffic is routed through several Low-Cost Wide Area Routers. Wide Area Network has various benefits and drawbacks and these are discussed below:

Cost savings: Wide-Area-Network has several cost-saving options like Co-lier packets, Wide Area Network (WAN) routing, Multi-Linking Hosting (MLH), and label switching. WAN reduces the cost of hardware and software by avoiding the need to purchase new equipment and maintaining the ones that are in place. Wide-Area-Network can help reduce the cost of deployment and maintenance. Wide-Area-Network is highly reliable and secure, and it provides fast accessibility to a wide geographical area.

Increase in productivity: Wide Area Network allows easy access from any place in the world. With the increase in travel, business is being carried out at a faster pace. A Wide-Area-Network has the potential to boost productivity as employees can be located at any place and date can be worked. WAN enables the companies to have a centralized data center, which improves data processing speed and allows storing of important business information.

Increase in security: Wide-Area-Network allows high bandwidth communication. Security of data is provided with Wide Area Network (WAN). It provides a layer of authentication and integrity between the client computers and server computers to make data transfer between them safe. In order to maintain the high bandwidth communication Wide Area Network requires an adequate amount of electricity, which can only be supplied by power sources such as coal-fired, nuclear, hydro, and solar.

There are various advantages of Wide-Area-Network. For enterprise requirements, a reliable and efficient Wide Area Network is essential. For business, Wide Area Network presents a cost-effective solution for expanding the geographical areas for business operations and also improving customer service. For small businesses and individuals running small scale businesses, a WAN offers a fast, cost effective and efficient solution for accessing internet resources from anywhere in the world.