In the late 1960s, as large university universities and various research laboratories acquired an increasing number of computers, the need for high-speed interconnections was great and the pressure was mounting. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that a demand response was created, they called it LAN.
LAN stands for Local Area Network, with the ability to cover small areas, such as a house, an office, or a group of buildings (schools, warehouses, etc.), LANs have higher data transfer rates, a smaller range and do not require a license. telecommunications lines instead of WAN (wide area network). ARCNET and Token Ring were two LANs that were used a lot in the past. Ethernet and Wi-Fi are two of the most common LANs today.
A LAN is an important component for gamers. By setting up a LAN, gamers can connect their computers and play with or against their friends. Games such as “Diablo II” and “SOCOM” allow players to cooperate as a team while online or while their computers are connected by LAN. Games, such as “Unreal Tournament” and “Starcraft,” allow players to connect over the Internet or a LAN to work as a team or compete against each other. Computers are usually connected by what is known as a Cat-5 cable to a HUB; and the HUB acts as a mediator. The Cat-5 cable connects to the back of the computer through the Ethernet port on the network card, network adapter, LAN adapter, or NIC (network interface card). A network card operates at both the physical layer and the data link layer; allows a low-level addressing system, using Mac addresses, also known as IP addresses, and physical access to the network medium (the HUB). Not all LANs are the same; some use cables while others are wireless.
While other networking technologies exist, since the mid-1990s, the Ethernet network card has led the crowd due to its low cost and easy integration and use. Each Ethernet network card has a unique 48-bit serial number stored in ROM; the serial number is the Mac address of your computer. The Mac address of each computer must be unique; otherwise, only one computer with a given Mac address could be online and connected to the LAN at a time. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is responsible for each unique Mac address being assigned to interface driver vendors; this is so that no two network cards share the same Mac address.
At one time, network cards were expansion cards that needed to be plugged into the motherboard. Most new computers have the network card built into the motherboard; some may even have two built-in ports so the computer can connect to multiple networks. Some companies have started using fiber optics instead of Cat-5 cables or USB cables, because fiber optics is immune to electromagnetic interference. Optical fibers are made of glass or plastic, rather than metal, and they carry light along their entire length. Electrical signals sent through fiber optics degrade less during transfer than signals sent through metallic cables (Cat-5 cables and USB cables).