http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/introwan.htm Wide Area Network Assessment Introduction to WAN's Wide Area Networks (WAN's) are very large networks of computers. These networks span across large geographical areas and have been know to connect computers thousands of miles apart. A WAN can also be a collection of LANs, bringing together many smaller networks into one large network. Unlike LANs, most WAN's are not owned by any …showed first 75 words of 1159 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1159 total…used to work by an IP packet being extracted to its Destination Address, which was classified by examining its first one to four bits. Once the address's class had been determined, it was broken down into network and host bits. Routers ignored the host bits, and only needed to match the network bits to find a route to the network. Once a packet reached its target network, its host field was examined for final delivery.