Globally about eight types of Wi-Fi networks are utilized in the Internet. Commercially and domestically the utilization has increased on the basis of their scale and scope, network industries preferences, their design and implementations. In the Wi-Fi network technology LAN and WAN are the two mostly known and commonly used terms.

The Local Area Network abbreviated as LAN was first devised for the purpose of communicating between two computers. It controls the process of communication through network cards and cables. Afterwards, the concept of Wireless Local Area Network or WLAN was formed and became known which was formed through LAN concept. In WLAN, wireless LAN cards are used for computer communication. For the Wi-Fi networks there are no wires involved to communicate.

In the Wi-Fi network world, the original network is LAN. The other networks were formed afterwards according to the rise of requirements. Following are the newly formed Wi-Fi networks:

• CAN – It is the abbreviation of Campus Area Network, Controller Area Network and often Cluster Area Network. A Campus Area Network is used for networking spanning with multiple LANs but if a CAN is compared to a MAN then the former is smaller than a Metropolitan Area Network.

Such wireless networks are mostly used in buildings, relatively large universities or local business offices.

• DAN – The Desk Area Network or abbreviated as DAN is a multimedia workstation that is supported around an ATM interconnection. By means of a switch fabric the ATM cells are sent for attaining the benefit of communication between peripherals, between the CPU and its main memory.

• MAN – MAN is the abbreviation of Metropolitan Area Network. A MAN does not have its daily utilization benefit but such networks are mostly used for some government bodies and organizations. This kind of metropolitan wireless networks falls in middle of LAN and WAN.

• PAN – PAN is defined as Personal Area Network. A Personal Area Network is formed for communication among computer devices. Such devices may include telephones and even personal digital assistants.

Among the personal devices a PAN network can be used for communicating between themselves. It can also be used for connecting to a higher level network and the Internet.

• SAN – SAN is the acronym of Storage Area Network. But the abbreviated form can also be used with names like System Area Network, Server Area Network, or sometimes Small Area Network. These technologies find its use for data storage.

• WAN – WAN is the acronym of Wide Area Network. As "word" Wide implies, WAN, wide area network cover large distance for communication between computers.

The biggest example of WAN is Internet itself. Its network covers an area of the entire earth. It is a distributed collection of geographically LANs.

• WLAN – Formed on the concept of LAN, WLAN is the abbreviated form of Wireless Local Area Network. A LAN is the local area network which is based on wireless network technology mostly referred as Wi-Fi.

In most laptops the Wi-Fi network adapters are built. Making this wireless networking option as the most economical ones of Internet, the price of chipsets for Wi-Fi continues to drop.