Local Area Networks

A local area network (LAN) covers a limited geographical area (typically a single building or campus), and is usually wholly owned and maintained by a single organisation. LANs are widely used to connect personal computers and workstations in homes, company offices and factories in order to share resources and exchange information. They are distinguished from other kinds of network by their size, their transmission technology, and their topology. Because of their (relatively) small size, management of the network is comparitively straightforward, and LANs generally enjoy high data rates, small propagation delays, and low error rates. The diagram below shows some of the elements you could expect to find in a typical local area network.

A typical local area network

A typical local area network