How Do Routers Work on a LAN & a WAN?

Routers often bridge LAN and WAN connections, being a part of both simultaneously.

A router is a device that forwards data packets along a computer network. The two main types of networks are the local area network, or LAN, and the wide area network, or WAN. Routers interact with both networks in a similar manner, and the same router than can be used on a LAN or WAN.

Router Types

The two main types of router in use today are wired routers and wireless routers. As the names would imply, wired routers operate through direct Ethernet connection, whereas wireless modems connect using transmitted radio signals. While there are distinctions between the two routers in terms of data transfer speed, they both interact with LANs and WANs in the same way.

LANs

Local Area Networks are simply networks that operate on a local scale. For example, if you connect several computers in your home to share Internet access, then you have a LAN setup for your house. Similarly, when you go to Starbucks or your local library and connect to their wireless hotspot, you're actually connecting to their wireless LAN. LANs are generally created for convenience because they allow multiple computers to share the same Internet connection simultaneously, as well as share information across multiple computers.

WANs

In simple terms, a wide area network is just a network that spans a large geographical region. This means that when you connect to the Internet, you're actually connecting to a wide area network. However, private WANs also exist, and are most commonly set up for businesses that have offices in different parts of the world. Routers do not directly interact with WANs, but instead, interact with the LANs that WANs consist of. As an example, a WAN would connect the LANs of an office in Florida to the LAN of an office in California, and routers would be what would operate the LANs in each office, transmitting data to the proper computer as it is needed.

Connection Speed

Wireless routers and wired routers each offer different connection speeds for their respective networks. The fastest wired network operates using gigabit Ethernet cables, and can transfer data at 1 gigabit per second. In contrast, the fasts wireless router, the N router, can only transfer data at a rate of up to 300 megabits per second, less than a third of the speed of gigabit Ethernet wired networks. Because of this, most networks that value speed operate using wired routers, whereas networks that service a broad variety of users, such as public networks found at Starbucks, use wireless routers. Many WANs, in contrast, use fiber optic cables, which support far greater speeds than Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

References

• Indiana University: What is a WAN?