Consider a company that has 50 employees at their local head office, each with a computer at their desk. Connecting these computers together to form a network allows the employees to
• Send messages to each other through their computers
• Access others computer files
• Share printers and other external resources- a printer may be connected to one computer but each one can share it.
The computers are connected with special networking hardware, usually a networking interface card and a cable. If I unplug a cable then I have no access to the network resources (files, printers etc). I would be limited to working files residing on my own machine and with devices connected directly to it. This is often referred to as a Local Area Network (LAN)
Suppose this time the company has sales office in different part of the world, each office with its own LAN system. Using the telephone system and/or satellite links, the company could connect all the LANs together thus creating a Wide Area Network (WAN) sometimes referred to as the Intranet. The denotes that the network is all within the company-no one from outside the world can access it. The company can, make portion of its network accessible by the outside parties, if they so choose.
That brings us to the definition of Internet
Suppose this time the company has sales office in different part of the world, each office with its own LAN system. Using the telephone system and/or satellite links, the company could connect all the LANs together thus creating a Wide Area Network (WAN) sometimes referred to as the Intranet. The
