Introduction
Today we discuss about the different network types. And these network types depend on how large they are and how much of an area they cover geographically. Now most people who have a basic knowledge of networking are familiar with terms such as LAN and WAN.
Table of Contents
Personal Area Network (PAN)
So let’s first talk about a PAN. PAN stands for personal area network. Now this is a type of network that is used on a personal level. It’s a small network that is used for connecting devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. And they connect to each other by using wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, infrared, and near field communication or NFC. But they can also connect by using a wired connection such as a USB cable. PANs are generally used for transferring small files such as music, photos, calendar appointments, and so on.
Local Area Network (LAN)
And the next type of network is a LAN. Now LAN stands for local area network. A local area network is a group of devices such as computers, servers, switches, and printers which are located in the same building, such as in an office or in a home. In other words, in close proximity to each other.
The most common type of LAN is an Ethernet LAN, where two or more computers are connected to Ethernet cables using a switch. Now a WLAN or wireless local area network is a local area network that uses wireless communication instead of wired communication. A wireless LAN is defined as having at least two devices that use wireless communication to form a local area network. A wireless LAN will typically have a Wi-Fi router or a wireless access point for wireless devices such as laptops, tablets, wireless desktops, and smartphones, to communicate.
So in simple terms, a wireless LAN is a LAN but without using cables.
Campus Area Network (CAN)
And the next network type is a CAN. Now CAN stands for campus area network. A CAN is a network that joins two or more LANs together within a limited area. So for example a CAN could be a university that has multiple buildings in the same general area that are connected to each other to form a larger network.
So these buildings could be different departments on a University’s property with each building having their own LAN in their department. And then the buildings are connected to form a campus area network.
Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
And the next network type is a MAN. MAN stands for metropolitan area network. Now this is a larger network than a CAN. It’s a network that spans over several buildings in a city or town. MANs are typically connected using a high speed connection such as fiber optic cable. It’s a high speed network that gives the ability for sharing data and resources within a city.
Storage Area Network (SAN)
And the next one is a SAN or storage area network. Now a SAN is a special high speed network that stores and provides access to large amounts of data. Basically what a SAN is, is that it’s a dedicated network that’s used for data storage. This network consists of multiple disk arrays, switches, and servers. One of the main reasons for using a SAN is because SANs are not affected by network traffic such as bottlenecks that can happen in a local area network.
And that’s because SANs aren’t really a part of a local area network, it’s partitioned off. It’s a network all by itself.
Wide Area Network (WAN)
Finally, let’s get into tokenomics, as I know a lot of people watch our videos to get an idea of how a coin or project works so that they can invest in it. This is a simple reminder that we will never offer investing advice. We will never reach out to you to ask for money and we will never post our WhatsApp number in the comments. The spam comments are so bad lately, please do not contact them.
The coin on the Solana network is the SOL coin, and it is used for transaction fees and used all over the blockchain ecosystem. From as far as I can tell, Solana is both inflationary and deflationary. It’s deflationary because for a long time, 100% of all transaction fees were burned, and now it’s around 50% that are burned. But it’s also inflationary because they recently approved an inflation schedule where staking rewards are paying out around 8%, but they do get cut every few days by a very, very small amount until the final staking rewards hit 1.5% in 10 years.
In terms of total supply, they initially started out with around 500 million tokens, and of course, it will keep increasing due to the proof of stake rewards. Also, on the topic of early distribution, there are four private funding rounds before their initial ICO. Those four funding rounds and their ICO sold around 36% of their supply at a very cheap price too. I mean, they were selling these things for like 25 cents each, while the price currently sits at $200. Another 13% of the tokens went to the founders of the project, another 10% went to the Solana Foundation, and the remaining 39% went to fund community initiatives, which is also currently held through the Foundation.
Now, some weird thing that I found out was that there was a Solana wallet holding like 13 million tokens, and nobody knew why, so they just burned a bunch of them. Definitely worth noting. One more thing worth mentioning is that Solana actually went down for around six hours in December of 2020. Honestly, to me, this is a little scary because a decentralized protocol should never go down. It means everyone participating in the network had the same bug. This problem did absolutely nothing to the price, though. It seems nobody panic-sold due to this news. Lastly, Solana is still in the beta stage, so if you’re an investor or want to develop a DApp for them, you should definitely know that.