gestion-began to be developed, these applications began to dictate the type of network needed. Therefore, the architecture shifted from being device driven to being application driven. The Evolution of Data Communications Remote-Access Workers In the late 1990s, with the downsizing of IT departments, both in terms of physical size and cost, it became much easier to deploy IT resources to the worker than to require the worker to come to the IT resources. Remote access, or teleworking, became a frequently used personnel approach that had advantages in terms of enhanced employee productivity, better morale, and savings in transportation costs. Also, as many large corporations downsized, workers became self-employed and worked from small offices or home offices. This architecture featuring remote- access workers focused on providing appropriate data networking capabilities to people in their homes, in hotels, in airports, and in any other place where they might need to access the network. Facilities were designed specifically to authenti- cate and authorize remote users and to allow them access to corporate LANs and their underlying resources. Today, individuals are increasingly using their residences as places to carry out pro- fessional functions, and they need to network intelligent devices used for work, educational, or leisure activities. Therefore, home area networks (HANs) becoming a new network domain that needs to be addressed; these days, we don't need to think about just the last mile, but about the last 328 feet (100 m)! Of course, what this really means is that we are bringing LAN technology into the home, with the likes of Wi-Fi being extremely popular at this time. (HANs are dis- cussed in more detail in Chapter 12, "Broadband Access Alternatives.") A personal area network (PAN) is a network that serves a single person or small workgroup and is characterized by limited distance, limited throughput, and low volume. PANs are used to transfer data between a laptop or PDA and a desktop machine or server an