Network Types Explained: PAN, LAN, CAN, MAN and WAN for Network+

Network types are classified by geographic scope, and the exam expects you to place each one correctly and recognise the technologies associated with it.

The scale

Type	Scope	Typical technology
PAN — personal area network	Around one person, a few metres	Bluetooth, NFC, Zigbee, USB
LAN — local area network	One building or floor	Ethernet, Wi-Fi
WLAN — wireless LAN	A LAN, wirelessly	802.11
CAN — campus area network	Several nearby buildings	Fibre between buildings
MAN — metropolitan area network	A city	Metro Ethernet, fibre rings
WAN — wide area network	Cities, countries, global	MPLS, SD-WAN, leased lines, internet
SAN — storage area network	A data centre	Fibre Channel, iSCSI, FCoE

Two that do not fit the geographic pattern and are worth flagging. A SAN is defined by purpose — providing block-level storage access — rather than by distance, and the exam likes to test that it presents storage as if locally attached, unlike NAS which presents file shares. A WLAN is a LAN that happens to be wireless, not a separate scale.

Personal area networks

The smallest scale, centred on an individual and typically spanning a few metres.

Bluetooth is the dominant PAN technology. Classic Bluetooth suits continuous streams such as audio; Bluetooth Low Energy suits sensors and wearables that send small amounts of data on battery power for months. Class 2 devices, the common case, reach about 10 metres.

NFC works at a few centimetres, deliberately. The short range is the security control — you have to be essentially touching the reader — which is why it suits contactless payment and access badges.

Zigbee and Z-Wave are low-power mesh technologies for home and building automation. Mesh topology means devices relay for each other, extending coverage beyond any single radio's range.

Infrared is largely obsolete and requires line of sight.

USB tethering and wired USB also count as PAN connections.

Range and power, and why they trade off

A theme worth carrying through the whole table: range, throughput and power consumption pull against each other.

NFC has trivial range and negligible power draw. Bluetooth LE sacrifices throughput for battery life measured in months. Wi-Fi delivers high throughput at the cost of significant power. A WAN link covers continents and depends on carrier infrastructure rather than anything you power yourself.

This is also why 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi reaches further than 5 GHz while carrying less: lower frequencies penetrate obstacles better, higher frequencies carry more data over shorter distances.

WAN technologies

Since WAN comes up most in exam scenarios, the terms to recognise: MPLS, a carrier service with traffic engineering and quality of service guarantees; SD-WAN, which uses software control to run traffic over multiple transports including ordinary broadband; leased lines, dedicated point-to-point circuits; broadband including cable, DSL and fibre to the premises; and cellular, increasingly used as a primary link rather than only as backup.

The direction of travel is from MPLS toward SD-WAN, because SD-WAN delivers comparable reliability over cheaper transport by measuring path quality and steering traffic accordingly.

Where the boundaries blur

Worth knowing so the exam's neat categories do not mislead. A CAN is essentially a large LAN or a small MAN, and where you draw the line is a matter of convention. A MAN may be a service you buy or infrastructure you own. And a modern organisation's "network" spans several of these plus cloud environments that fit none of them.

For exam purposes, answer on geographic scope: within arm's reach is PAN, one building is LAN, several nearby buildings is CAN, a city is MAN, beyond that is WAN.

What to remember

PAN is metres and uses Bluetooth, NFC and Zigbee; LAN is a building; CAN is a campus; MAN is a city; WAN is anything wider. WLAN is a wireless LAN, not a separate scale. SAN is defined by purpose — block-level storage — not distance, and differs from NAS, which serves files. Range, throughput and power consumption trade against each other at every scale.

Related reading: WAN · MAN and metro Ethernet · Bluetooth attacks