Broadband: Section 2

When computers are joined together, they form a network.

Within a network, there tends to be at least one dominant computer called a server.

The role of this computer is, amongst other things, to parcel out and control the flow of information around the network.

The bigger the network, the more servers you need and the more powerful servers you need and the more complex the system engineering becomes.

When computers within a reasonably confined geographical location are joined together, they are said to form a LAN (Local Area Network).

When computers located in diverse and sometimes widely geographically spread locations are joined together, they are said to form a WAN (Wide Area Network).

Information can be passed between computers within these LANs and WANs without reference to any external agencies.

The point about the Internet is that it has been developed to enable information to pass between all of these different groupings of computers with relative ease. The Internet is the communications infrastructure which joins up all of these separate, individual networks of computers.