Metropolitan area network

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Metropolitan area network

Metropolitan area networks, or MANs, are large computer networks usually spanning a city. They typically use wireless infrastructure or Optical fiber

Optical fiber

An optical fiber is a glass or plastic fiber that carries light along its length. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers....
connections to link their sites.

IEEE 802-2001 standard describes a MAN as being:

Authors Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon of Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm 10th ed. define Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) as: it can also be used in cable television.

technologies used for this purpose are ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Asynchronous Transfer Mode is an electronic digital data transmission technology. ATM is implemented as a network protocol and was first developed in the mid 1980s....
, FDDI, and SMDS

SMDS

SMDS, which stands for Switched multimegabit data service, was a connectionless service used to connect LANs, Metropolitan area networks and Wide area networks to exchange data....
.

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Encyclopedia

Metropolitan area networks, or MANs, are large computer networks usually spanning a city. They typically use wireless infrastructure or Optical fiber

Optical fiber

IEEE definition

The IEEE 802-2001 standard describes a MAN as being:

Authors Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon of Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm 10th ed. define Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) as: it can also be used in cable television.

Implementation

Some technologies used for this purpose are ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Asynchronous Transfer Mode is an electronic digital data transmission technology. ATM is implemented as a network protocol and was first developed in the mid 1980s....
, FDDI, and SMDS

SMDS

SMDS, which stands for Switched multimegabit data service, was a connectionless service used to connect LANs, Metropolitan area networks and Wide area networks to exchange data....
. These older technologies are in the process of being displaced by Ethernet

Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether....
-based MANs (e.g. Metro Ethernet

Metro Ethernet

A Metro Ethernet is a computer network based on the Ethernet standard and which covers a metropolitan area. It is commonly used as a metropolitan access network to connect subscribers and businesses to a Wide Area Network, such as the Internet....
) in most areas. MAN links between LAN

Local area network

A local area network is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport....
s have been built without cables using either microwave

Microwave

Microwaves are electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from 1 mm to 1 m, or frequency between 0.3 hertz and 300 GHz....
, radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic radiation with frequency below those of visible light.Electromagnetic radiation radio propagation by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space....
, or infra-red laser

Free-space optical communication

In telecommunications, Free Space Optics is an optical communication technology that uses light propagating in free space to transmit data between two points....
links. Most companies rent or lease circuits from common carriers due to the fact that laying long stretches of cable can be expensive.

DQDB, Distributed Queue Dual Bus, is the Metropolitan Area Network standard for data communication. It is specified in the IEEE 802.6

IEEE 802.6

IEEE 802.6 is a standard governed by the American National Standards Institute for Metropolitan Area Networks . It is an improvement of an older standard which used the Fiber distributed data interface network structure....
standard. Using DQDB, networks can be up to 20 miles (30 km) long and operate at speeds of 34 to 155 Mbit/s.

Several notable networks started as MANs, such as the Internet peering points MAE-West

MAE-West

MAE-West is a major Internet exchange point located on the west coast of the U.S. in San Jose, California and Los Angeles, California. Its name officially stands for "Metropolitan Area Exchange, West", although some note the similarity to the name of the actress Mae West....
, MAE-East

MAE-East

MAE-East is an Internet Exchange Point spread across the east coast of the United States, with locations in Vienna, Virginia; Reston, Virginia; Ashburn, Virginia; New York, New York; and Miami, Florida....
, and the Sohonet

Sohonet

Sohonet is a community-of-interest network for the television, film and media production community.Founded in 1995 by a group of Soho-based post-production companies, Sohonet links many of the British film studios to London's post-production community....
media network.

Related networks

Local area network
Local area network

A local area network is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport....
Campus area network
Campus area network

A campus area network is a computer network made up of an interconnection of local area networks within a limited geographical area. It can be considered one form of a metropolitan area network, specific to an academic setting....
Wide area network
Wide area network

Wide Area Network is a computer network that covers a broad area . Contrast with personal area networks , local area networks , campus area networks , or metropolitan area networks which are usually limited to a room, building, campus or specific metropolitan area respectively....
Extended metropolitan area network - eMAN