What Is Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN)?

You've got to love those acronyms. You know, the ones that make you feel like you're living in a world run by scientists. Take WWAN, for example. It's a wireless vast area network and a fancy way of saying "Wi-Fi." Not just any Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi covers more than one building or property. It's like when your mom told you you couldn't have dessert until you finished all your veggies. You knew she was lying about wanting to get rid of your leftovers, but you still had to eat everything on your plate before you could have dessert. Now imagine if everyone could eat what they wanted without worrying about others getting their hands on it first. That's like how a WWAN works: It lets you access data from anywhere in the world with no wires attached, just like that piece of cake sitting on top of my fridge right now (which we will eat). The wireless WAN is the excellent great-grandparent of the local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN). In a nutshell, it's a system that supports delivering data and voice to and from modern tablet and smartphone devices. While local area networks often rely on Ethernet, twisted-pair cabling, or short-range wireless routers, a wireless WAN may use various cellular network systems to send signals over a longer distance. Large telecom providers like T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and AT&T typically support a wireless WAN in one way or another. These more prominent types of networks often require some kinds of encryption or security that a local area network may not need. There are also some downsides to using large telecom providers as your wireless wide area network provider. Firstly, they can be vulnerable to a spectrum crunch when there's not enough space left in the limited amount of wireless spectrum frequencies for everyone who wants it. Secondly, this may cause some wireless wide area network administrators to change elements of their networks to rely less on systems that are reaching a maximum capacity.