Summary
Highlights
Networks are distinguished based on their geographical span, ranging from a small personal network to the global internet. The video will discuss various types of computer networks.
A PAN is the smallest and most personal network, typically including Bluetooth or infrared-enabled devices. It can connect devices like wireless keyboards, mice, headphones, and printers within a 10-meter range. A Piconet is an example of a Bluetooth-enabled PAN connecting up to 8 devices in a master-slave configuration.
A LAN spans within a building, such as offices, schools, colleges, or universities, under a single administrative system. It can connect from two to millions of systems, facilitating resource sharing like printers, file servers, scanners, and internet access. LANs primarily use Ethernet technology with a star topology and operate on private IP addresses.
A MAN generally expands throughout a city, like a cable TV network. It can use technologies like Ethernet, Token Ring, ATM, or FDDI. Metro Ethernet services allow users to expand their LANs across a city, connecting multiple offices of an organization. MANs provide high capacity and speed, acting as an uplink for LANs to WANs or the internet.
A WAN covers a wide area, potentially spanning provinces or entire countries, such as telecommunication networks. WANs connect MANs and LANs, utilizing high-speed backbones and often employing expensive equipment and advanced technologies like ATM, frame relay, or SONET. WANs can be managed by multiple administrations.
The Internet is the largest network, a 'network of networks', connecting all WANs and having connections to LANs and home networks. It uses the TCP/IP protocol suite and IP for addressing, currently transitioning from IPv4 to IPv6 due to address space shortages. The internet allows users to share vast amounts of information via WWW, FTP, email, and streaming services, operating on a client-server model and using high-speed fiber optics laid under the sea (submarine communication cables).
The Internet is widely deployed for web services using HTML pages, accessible via web browsers. It facilitates various processes such as websites, email, instant messaging, blogging, social media, research, sharing, and audio/video streaming.