What is a WAN?
Definition
A WAN, or wide area network, is a network that spans multiple sites or large distances, connecting local area networks to each other and to the internet. For most organisations it is the public internet plus any leased lines, SD-WAN tunnels or mobile links between branches, usually provided by third-party carriers.
WAN explained
Where the LAN is the network inside your building, the WAN is how that building reaches everything else: head office, a data centre, cloud services and the internet. Because it relies on carriers, WAN capacity is usually smaller and more expensive than LAN capacity, and it is often where performance and cost decisions are made.
For WiFi, the WAN link sets the ceiling. A venue can have excellent coverage from its access points and still feel slow if the internet uplink is saturated, which is why guest networks use rate limits and traffic shaping. It also affects where services run: cloud authentication and management depend on the WAN, so resilience planning matters.
WAN design varies with the setting. Multi-site retailers and hotel groups link branches with SD-WAN. Trains moving through patchy mobile coverage use WAN aggregation, combining several 5G links and sometimes satellite into one logical connection for resilience. Between the two sits the metropolitan area network, which covers a city or campus.
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