Networks can be described in terms of their scale of deployment according to how much of an area they cover or what type of area they cover. The exam objectives specifically call out LANs and wide area networks (WANs). LANs and WANs will be discussed in this and the following chapters. I will round off this chapter with a brief explanation of metropolitan area networks (MANs), campus area networks (CANs), and Personal Area Networks (PANs). The following diagram is a visual representation of where each of these fits in the scale of networks:
Figure 2.1: Scale of networks
It should be noted that you may see the acronyms prefixed with the letter W; for example, WLAN, WWAN, and so on. This usually indicates that it is a wireless variant of the network.