On corporate and university campuses, a local area network (LAN) is typically used to connect an end system to the edge router. Though, there are many types of LAN technologies, Ethernet is by far the most widespread access technology in corporate and university networks.
Increasingly, people access the Internet wirelessly, either through a laptop computer or from a mobile handheld device, such as an iPhone, Blackberry, or Google phone. Today, there are two common types of wireless Internet access. In a wireless LAN, wireless users
When you access the Internet through wireless LAN technology, you normally require to be within a few tens of meters of the access point. This is reasonable for home access, coffee shop access and more commonly, access within and around a building. But what if you are on the
In the earlier subsection, we gave general idea of some of the most important network access technologies in the Internet. As we explained these technologies, we also indicated the physical media used. For instance, we said that HFC uses a combination of fiber cable and coaxial
An optical fiber is a thin, flexible medium that conducts pulses of light, with each pulse representing a bit. A single optical fiber can support remarkable bit rates, up to tens or even hundreds of gigabits per second. They are resistant to electromagnetic interference, have very low
Radio channels carry signals in the electromagnetic spectrum. They are an attractive medium because they need no physical wire to be installed, can go through walls, provide connectivity to a mobile user, and can potentially carry a signal for long distances. The features of a radio channel
Many users today access the Internet via wireless devices, such as WiFi-connected laptops or handheld devices with cellular Internet connections (covered in “Wireless and Mobile Networks”). While ubiquitous Internet access is very suitable and enables excellent new