Local to Wide Area Connections: Access Networks
The link from a LAN, or a collection of linked LANs, to a wide area network is usually accomplished by some variation on telephone company technology. There are two general categories of access networks: carriers and services. We'll talk first about the carriers, which just provide the physical links that create a path from place to place. Other than (in some cases) putting the data into frames, there are no addressing or other software components provided; we could call this U-Switch. Second, we'll review the complete network services that the telcos and their competitors provide. For consistency, think of the carriers as Layer 1 and the services as Layer 2.
Carriers (Physical Links)
There are ...
Get Essential Guide to Computing: The Story of Information Technology, The now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
