NFC, PAN, LAN, CAN, MAN or WAN?

About this interactive

The lesson's scales, smallest to largest: - **NFC (near field communication):** devices almost touching, within about an inch and a half. Two phones bumped together, or a phone tapped to pay. - **PAN (personal area network):** within about 30 feet of your device, such as Bluetooth earbuds or speakers. - **LAN (local area network):** locally connected devices on a switch, one broadcast domain. - **CAN (campus area network):** several LANs across a college or business campus. - **MAN (metropolitan area network):** sites spread across a city, such as one company's campuses around town. - **WAN (wide area network):** beyond a city, across a country or the globe. Scale is the deciding fact: a link between routers in different states is a WAN link even if it runs Ethernet, a LAN technology.

What you'll learn

Name the scale of a network from how far it reaches: NFC (touching distance), PAN (around 30 feet), LAN (one local network), CAN (one campus), MAN (one city) or WAN (beyond a city)
Recognize that a link counts as a WAN by its distance, even when it runs on a LAN technology such as Ethernet

Aligned to

CompTIA Network+

1.6 Compare and contrast network topologies, architectures, and types.

CompTIA A+ Core 1

2.7 Compare and contrast Internet connection types, network types, and their features.

Cisco CCST Networking

1.3 Differentiate between LAN, WAN, MAN, CAN, PAN, and WLAN

Key terms

Near Field Communication: Near Field Communication is a short-range wireless technology used in contactless payment cards, access badges, and mobile authentication; in security contexts, NFC is subject to eavesdropping, relay, and replay attacks if data is not properly encrypted.
Personal Area Network: A network that spans a short range of roughly 30 feet, connecting personal devices such as phones, earbuds, and speakers, commonly via Bluetooth.
Local Area Network: A network that connects devices within a limited geographic area such as a home, office floor, or building, where all devices share the same broadcast domain and communicate at high speeds with low latency. A router defines the boundary of a LAN by separating it from other networks.
Campus Area Network: A network that interconnects multiple LANs within a limited geographic area such as a university campus or corporate office complex. A CAN is larger than a LAN but smaller than a MAN or WAN, typically owned and operated by a single organization.
Metropolitan Area Network: A network that spans a city or metro area, interconnecting multiple campuses or buildings distributed across an urban region.
Wide Area Network: A network that spans a large geographic area, connecting multiple local area networks.

Topics

Nfc Pan Lan Can Man Wan Geographic Scale Interactive Categorize

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