Consider any network – the global telephone network; the internet; a local area computer network; a wireless LAN; a mobile phone network etc. All of these fundamentally deliver services or applications to users.
These applications could be ‘to carry a voice-call’; ‘to send an email’; ‘to provide information contained on a web site’; ‘to exchange data files’; ‘to stream a video file’.
Networks are simply a delivery channel and it is always important to remember this. People need networks, not because they are interested in network technology, BUT because they need a network to enable a service to be delivered!