Metropolitan Area Networks Explained: Metro Ethernet and Dark Fibre for Network+
A metropolitan area network spans a city or a large campus — bigger than a LAN, smaller than a WAN. For the broader network-type hierarchy and how WANs work, see WAN Explained . This article is about what makes the metropolitan scale distinctive. A MAN is the awkward middle: too large for you to own all the cable, too small to need carrier WAN services. That tension defines everything about how one gets built. Where the Boundaries Fall Typical reach is roughly 5 to 50 kilometres — a city, a metropolitan region, or a set of campuses within one urban area. Beyond that you are into WAN territory; below it, a campus area network. The distinction is not purely about distance, though. A MAN is characterized by being within one metropolitan area, which usually means one regional carrier can serve all the sites, latency stays low enough for synchronous applications, and dedicated fibre is economically plausible in a way it is not across a continent. Who Actually Builds Them Muni...