LAN

A L ocal A rea N etwork that depicts any computer network technology that operates at high speed over short distances (up to a few thousand meters). A LAN may refer to a network in a given department or within a given firm or campus. It differs from computer networks that cross wider geographic spaces such as those networks on a WAN network. A LAN does not use the publc arteries of the Internet like intranets and VPNs. (See also Internet , TCP/IP , WAN , Intranet , and Extranet , and Virtual Private Networks (VPN) )