One of the significant differences is in the geographical area they cover, i.e. LAN covers the smallest area; MAN covers an area larger than LAN and WAN comprises the largest of all.
Furthermore, LAN networks rely on the hardware and communication devices owned by them for the transmission. As against, this could not be possible in case of MAN and WAN which are obliged to use public, private, leased communication hardware as these networks are spanned across a magnificent area.
Content: LAN Vs MAN Vs WAN
- Comparison Chart
- Definition
- Key Differences
- Conclusion
Comparison Chart
Expands to | Local Area Network | Metropolitan Area Network | Wide Area Network |
Meaning | A network that connects a group of computers in a small geographical area. | It covers relatively large region such as cities, towns. | It spans large locality and connects countries together. Example Internet. |
Ownership of Network | Private | Private or Public | Private or Public |
Design and maintenance | Easy | Difficult | Difficult |
Propagation Delay | Short | Moderate | Long |
Speed | High | Moderate | Low |
Fault Tolerance | More Tolerant | Less Tolerant | Less Tolerant |
Congestion | Less | More | More |
Used for | College, School, Hospital. | Small towns, City. | Country/Continent. |
Allows | Single pair of devices to communicate. | Multiple computers can simultaneously interact. | A huge group of computers communicate at the same time. |
Definition of Local Area Network
LAN or Local Area Network links network devices in such a way that personal computer and workstations can share data, tools and programs. Data transmits at a very fast rate as the number of computers linked are limited. LAN’s cover a smaller geographical area and are privately owned. One can use it for an office building, home, hospital, schools, etc. LAN is easy to design and maintain.
A Communication medium used for LAN has twisted pair cables and coaxial cables. It covers a short distance, and so the error and noise are minimized. LAN can be configured in the ring, bus and star topology. The ring topology is prevalent in the Token Ring LANs of IBM and bus is widespread in Token Bus and Ethernet LANs.
Definition of Metropolitan Area Network
MAN or Metropolitan area Network covers a larger area than that of a LAN and smaller area as compared to WAN. It connects two or more computers that are apart but resides in the same or different cities. It covers a large geographical area and may serve as an ISP (Internet Service Provider). It’s hard to design and maintain a Metropolitan Area Network.
Types of MAN
MAN can be categorised into two types: DQDB and SMDS.
- DQDB (Distributed Queue Dual Bus): It is considered as a dual bus configuration refers that each host in the network would be linked to the two backbone network lines.
- SMDS (Switched Multimegabit Data Services): SMDS connects different LANs and permits packets to transfer to any other LAN on the SMDS. It is a high-speed MAN which uses packet switching as a datagram service.
Definition of Wide Area Network
WAN or Wide Area Network is a computer network that spans over a large geographical area. A WAN could be a connection of LAN connecting to other LAN’s via telephone lines and radio waves.
Wide Area Network may or may not be privately owned. A Communication medium used for wide area network is PSTN or Satellite Link. Due to long-distance transmission, the noise and error tend to be more in WAN. Propagation delay is one of the biggest problems faced here.
Key Differences Between LAN, MAN and WAN
- The geographical area covered by LAN is small, whereas, MAN covers relatively large and WAN covers the greatest of all.
- LAN is confined to schools, hospitals or buildings, whereas, MAN connects small towns or Cities and on the other hand, WAN covers Country or a group of Countries.
- Devices used for transmission of data are-
LAN: WiFi, Ethernet Cables.
MAN: Modem and Wire/Cable
WAN: Optic wires, Microwaves, Satellites.
- LAN’s transmit data at a faster rate than MAN and WAN.
- Maintenance of LAN is easier than that of MAN and WAN.
- The bandwidth available for transmission is higher in LAN than MAN and WAN.
- Data transmission errors and noise are least in LAN, moderate in MAN and high in WAN.
Conclusion
There are many advantages of LAN over MAN and WAN, such as LAN’s provide excellent reliability, high data transmission rate, they can easily be managed and shares peripheral devices too.
Local Area Network cannot cover cities or towns and for that Metropolitan Area Network is needed, which can connect the city or a group of cities. Further, for connecting Country or a group of Countries, one requires a Wide Area Network.
A computer network is a group of computers connected with each other through a transmission medium such as cable, wire etc. In this guide, we will discuss the types of computer networks in detail.
Types of Computer Network
3. Wide area network (WAN)
1. Local Area Network (LAN)
4. LANs are not limited to wire connection, there is a new evolution to the LANs that allows local area network to work on a wireless connection.
2. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
MAN network covers larger area by connections LANs to a larger network of computers. In Metropolitan area network various Local area networks are connected with each other through telephone lines. The size of the Metropolitan area network is larger than LANs and smaller than WANs(wide area networks), a MANs covers the larger area of a city or town.
3. Wide area network (WAN)
Wide area network provides long distance transmission of data. The size of the WAN is larger than LAN and MAN. A WAN can cover country, continent or even a whole world. Internet connection is an example of WAN. Other examples of WAN are mobile broadband connections such as 3G, 4G etc.
Advantages of WAN:
Centralized infrastructure: One of the main advantage of WAN is the that we do not need to maintain the backup and store data on local system as everything is stored online on a data centre, from where we can access the data through WAN.
Privacy: We can setup the WAN in such a way that it encrypts the data that we share online that way the data is secure and minimises the risk of unauthorized access.
Increased Bandwidth: With the WAN we get to choose the bandwidth based on the need, a large organization can have larger bandwidth that can carry large amount of data faster and efficiently.
Area: A WAN can cover a large area or even a whole world though internet connection thus we can connect with the person in another country through WAN which is not possible is other type of computer networks.
Disadvantages of WAN:
Antivirus: Since our systems are connected with the large amount of systems, there is possibility that we may unknowingly download the virus that can affect our system and become threat to our privacy and may lead to data loss. Expensive: Cost of installation is very high.
Issue resolution: Issue resolution takes time as the WAN covers large area, it is really difficult to pin point the exact location where the issues raised and causing the problem.
Interconnection of Networks:
We have read LAN, MAN and WAN above, we also talked about internet. You can say that an internet is a combination of LAN, MAN and WAN.