-: So we just spent a lot of time
talking about wide area network technology and devices,
but what are the most common ones
that you're going to deal with as a network technician?
Well, by far, the most common one you're going to find
is either going to be a cable modem or a fiber optic modem.
And in this case,
I have a Verizon box that is a combination switch, router,
wireless access point, and media converter.
That's going to convert that cable signal,
has this built-in cable modem,
converts that, routes it over to the local area network.
Now, if you're dealing with fiber optic networks
like the new Verizon Fios network here in the United States,
you're actually going to see something
that looks just like this.
Now, why is that?
Well, because a lot of times,
they're going to convert it from fiber to coaxial
right outside your home
and then still run it in using a coaxial connection.
For example, here at our offices, we use Verizon Fios.
Verizon Fios gives us a fiber optic connection
to the building.
It goes from their headquarters to our headquarters,
and just outside our building,
it hits a media converter.
That media converter changes it from fiber optic
to a Cat6 connection.
That Cat6 copper cable
then goes and goes through that media converter
into our distribution center,
where our patch panel and our switch and router are.
And it connects in there.
From there, that's where we get that direct connection
to the internet over that Cat6 cable
and back out to that media converter.
Now the box that we have looks something like this.
The only difference is,
instead of plugging into this coax connection,
we're actually going to use this white connection,
which is where that Cat6 cable's going to come in.
And that's where the modem part of this comes in
from the fiber modem.
Again, we're just transiting that physical layer
from fiber to Cat6,
but it's still using that same modem inside of here
to connect it back into our network.
Now, another type of network you're going to see is satellite.
And if you're in a remote area,
where you don't have fiber or DSL or cable,
you might have to use a satellite modem.
A satellite modem's going to look
just like the one I just showed you.
It's still got that coax connection.
The difference is,
that coax connection runs up to the satellite dish
on your roof.
And that's where it's going to be converted
to radio frequency up to the satellite
and then down to the base station.
Again, from your perspective as a network technician though,
it's going to look very similar.
You're going to have this modem, this satellite modem
that you're going to plug in a coax cable to
and out the other side comes this RJ45,
the Cat6 cable that you can then plug
into whatever you want.
The final thing you might find if you don't have satellite
or cable or fiber or DSL is cellular.
And cellular is something that we all use.
I have this little Android phone.
I have my iPhone here sitting in my pocket, right?
All of these are cellular devices
and they are a wide area network connection.
In addition to giving us individual connections
over these cellular devices though,
we can also turn them into cellular hotspots,
where they use cellular to connect to the internet
and then put off a wireless access point
from the phone itself so your laptop or your tablets
can connect to them and then use them as a modem
to connect to the outside world.
Again, there are lots of different wide area technologies
that we didn't cover in this lesson,
but we talked about in the previous lessons.
But these are the ones that you're most likely going to find
when you're out in the field.