Q.Write the expanded names for the following abbreviated terms used in Networking and Communications:

These four abbreviations appear constantly in networking and telecommunications, so knowing their full forms is essential for any exam question on communication technology.

MBPS stands for Megabits Per Second. It measures data transfer speed—how many million bits of information travel through a network connection every second. Notice it's "bits" (lowercase 'b'), not bytes; one byte equals eight bits, so a 10 MBPS connection transfers roughly 1.25 megabytes per second.

WAN expands to Wide Area Network. Unlike a LAN (Local Area Network) confined to a building or campus, a WAN spans large geographical distances—cities, countries, or even continents. The internet itself is the largest example of a WAN, connecting millions of smaller networks worldwide.

CDMA means Code Division Multiple Access. It's a channel access method used in mobile telephony where multiple users share the same frequency band simultaneously. Each call gets assigned a unique code, allowing the system to separate conversations even though they overlap in frequency and time—think of it as everyone speaking different languages in the same room. …

These terms belong to the vocabulary of computer networking and telecommunications, fields that transformed how information moves across the world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Each abbreviation captures a specific technical concept.

(i) MBPS – Megabits Per Second

MBPS stands for Megabits Per Second, a unit that measures the rate at which data travels through a network or communication channel. One megabit equals one million bits (the smallest unit of digital information, a 0 or 1). When an internet service provider advertises "100 MBPS broadband," they mean the connection can theoretically transfer 100 million bits every second. This metric determines how quickly you can download a file, stream a video, or load a webpage.

(ii) WAN – Wide Area Network

WAN expands to Wide Area Network, a network that spans a large geographical area—cities, countries, or even continents. Unlike a Local Area Network (LAN), which connects devices within a single building or campus, a WAN links multiple LANs across vast distances using leased telecommunication lines, satellites, or undersea cables. The internet itself is the largest WAN, connecting billions of devices worldwide. Corporations use private WANs to link branch offices in different cities, enabling employees in Mumbai and Delhi to share files as if they were in the same room.

(iii) CDMA – Code Division Multiple Access

CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access, a channel access method used in mobile telephony. It allows multiple users to share the same frequency band simultaneously by assigning each conversation a unique code. Think of it as a crowded room where everyone speaks a different language—each pair can communicate without interference because they recognize only their own code. CDMA competed with GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) as a dominant 2G and 3G cellular standard, particularly popular in North America and parts of Asia during the 1990s and 2000s. …