How Many Types Of Popular Networks Are There?

Network is the large number of computers that are separate but interconnected with each other to share expensive resources. Networks are divided into different types; Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Campus Area Network (CAN),  Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), Home Area Networks (HAN), Wireless Networks and Internet Works. Local Area Networks (LAN) consist of small geographical area. Wide Area Networks (WAN) are connected by telephone lines and radio waves because it consists of large geographical area. Campus Area Networks (CAN) consists of limited geographical area. This type of network mostly used in organizations, military base etc. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is bigger version of local area network (LAN). There are 3 basic characteristics which are used to categorized networks into different types. These characteristics are network topology, protocols and architecture. Topology is arrangement of nodes (Computers and other peripheral devices).

Different types of topologies are used such as star topology, bus topology, ring topology, tree topology etc. Protocols are the common sets of rules and signals that are used to communicate over network. Ethernet is mostly used Local Area network (LAN) protocol. The last and most important characteristic is network architecture. On the base of architecture network is classifies into three categories. These categories peer to peer, client server and application network server.