What Kind of WAN Connection Is It?

About this interactive

The lesson's three types, with switched split in two: - **Dedicated**: a line only your data crosses, leased (T1, E1, T3, E3, dark fiber) or your own (a wireless link between buildings). The most control and the highest cost. - **Circuit-switched**: a shared line held for a period, like a phone call: the plain old telephone system, dial-up and ISDN, mostly on the last mile into old buildings. Slow. - **Packet-switched service**: bandwidth bought on a carrier's shared network between your sites, with guarantees: frame relay and ATM (legacy), Metro Ethernet and MPLS today. - **Internet**: any ISP connection (DSL, cable, fiber, cellular, satellite, municipal Wi-Fi) with a VPN between sites. Cheap and fast, with no guarantee.

What you'll learn

Classify a WAN connection as dedicated, circuit-switched, packet-switched service or internet from how its line is owned, held and shared
Weigh what each type trades: cost, control, speed and guarantees

Aligned to

Cisco CCNA

1.2 Describe characteristics of network topology architectures

Key terms

Wide Area Network: A network that spans a large geographic area, connecting multiple local area networks.
Dedicated WAN Connection: A WAN link reserved exclusively for one organization, providing consistent performance but at higher cost; examples include T1, E1, and dark fiber.
Circuit-Switched Connection: A WAN connection type that establishes a temporary dedicated path for the duration of a session, commonly associated with the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Multiprotocol Label Switching: A high-performance packet-forwarding technique that directs traffic using short fixed-length labels rather than network addresses, enabling fast switching independent of upper-layer protocols. MPLS is widely deployed by service providers to build scalable VPNs, traffic-engineered WAN paths, and quality-of-service-enabled networks.
Public Switched Telephone Network: The traditional circuit-switched telephone network that supports dial-up data connections at speeds up to 56 Kbps.

Topics

Wan Wan Connection Types Dedicated Line Circuit Switching Packet Switching Mpls Interactive Categorize

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