by A Network of Networks.
Although there are benefits to using LAN or WAN, most of us need to communicate with a resource on another network, outside of our local organization.
Examples of this type of communication include:
Sending an e-mail to a friend in another country
Accessing news or products on a website.
Following a favorite sporting team’s performance on a cell phone.
Internetwork
A global mesh of interconnected networks (internetwork) meets these human communication needs. Some of these interconnected networks are owned by large public and private organizations, such as government agencies or industrial enterprises, and are reserved for their exclusive use. The most well-known and widely used publicly-accessible internetwork is the internet.
The internet is created by the interconnection of networks belonging to internet service providers. These ISP networks connect to each other to provide access for millions of users all over the world. Ensuring effective communication across this diverse infrastructure requires the application of consistent and commonly recognized technologies and protocols as well as the cooperation of many network administration agencies.
INTRANET
The term intranet is often used to refer to a private connection of LANs and WANs that belongs to an organization and is designed to be accessible only by the organization’s members, employees, or others with authorization.
Note: The following terms may be interchangeable: internetwork, data network, and network. A connection between two or more data networks forms an internetwork- a network of networks. It is also common to refer to the internetwork as a data network- or simply as a network – when considering communications at a high level. The usage of terms depends on the context at the time and terms may often be interchanged.
