LAN and WAN, both are the computer networks that using in different size of area. There are some differences between those two networks.

Firstly,the LAN or Local Area Network is covering just only the small area such like home users, office or other department. It is limited for just the small area. In the other hand, WAN can be using to cover the wider area as it named “Wide Area Network”. From the fact that they cover different size of area, so LAN can actually boost the speed up to 1000 mbps while WAN which has to cover larger area can only run the speed at 150 mbps. Moreover, the LAN have higher data transfer rate when comparing with WAN. Plus, LAN has less transmission error. It is also different in the way that LAN can be own by the private sector or single person but WAN is for the over long distance distributed.

The other thing is that LAN need high cost to set up but less cost of maintenance because it is cover just in a small area. while WAN can also be at very high cost too because the remote areas need to be set up, however, it can be incredibly cheap by using software instead but still high maintenance cost as it need to cover the larger area and it is harder to taking care of.

References

http://www.diffen.com/difference/LAN_vs_WAN

http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-between-lan-and-wan