What Is A LAN?

INTRODUCTION

A LAN is a Local Area Network. A local area network is defined as a connected network of computers that are in close proximity to each other. For example, 100 computers all residing in the same office building could be connected to form a local area network. A hundred computers spread out all across the state and connected together would for a WAN (Wide Area Network).

A local area network can allow a company to easily share files, printers, software applications, hard drive space and even Internet connections, which can dramatically reduce overall operating costs.

TYPES OF LANS

There are two primary local area network standards in use today:

Ethernet
Token Ring
Ethernet is the most common type of LAN in existence today, and is easy and inexpensive to implement. Considering that a single 10/100 Ethernet network interface card for your PC can cost as little as $19.95 on sale and a Token Ring network interface card often cost well over $100.00, it is not hard to see that Ethernet is the network choice for small and midsize businesses.

Today’s Ethernet standards allow transfer speed up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) and 1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet) is just around the corner. Cabling options include Category 5 unshielded twisted pair cable and fiber optic cable.

Category 5 cable (cat5) is inexpensive, flexible and very reliable and is the best choice for small to midsize businesses. That is unless security is an issue. It is possible for a hacker to tap into cat5 cable and intercept information, although this is really a non-issue for most businesses. If high security is an issue, then fiber optic cable is the way to go as it is virtually impossible to tap, but fiber optic cable is very expensive and fragile.

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