metropolitan area network

High-speed communications network within the environs of a city or metropolitan area. In the UK, MANs have become more common as schools, colleges, and public services have become linked to the Internet. MANs provide a high-speed network backbone for all of these services, and the high cost of building the MAN can be recovered by charging organizations to use it to gain faster access to the Internet. Some MANs are operated by the public sector and some by commercial organizations.