if it has received resignation confirmation messages from all neighboring gateway stations and all member stations affiliated with it if all such other stations have sent such message and they have been received by the resigning gateway station the procedure terminates as successful if any neighboring gateway station or affiliated member station does not provide such a confirming message the procedure terminates as unsuccessful and the station continues in its role as a gateway each linked or neighboring gateway station receiving a resignation request from another gateway station i e as broadcast at step 81 in fig5 executes the procedure illustrated in fig6 using the data which the station has collected regarding the configuration of the network the receiving gateway station checks to see if the requesting gateway station is an articulation point in the network backbone configuration as is understood by those skilled in the art the removal of a node at an articulation point would break the connectivity of the network backbone if the requesting station is an articulation point as tested block 89 the present gateway station does not at block 91 send a confirmation message accordingly the requesting gateway station will be blocked from resigning if the requesting station is not an articulation point the gateway station receiving the resignation request sends the appropriate confirmation message as indicated at block 93 so that the requesting station can resign if all other affected station also confirm if a non gateway or member station receives a resignation request from the gateway station with which it is affiliated the member station checks as indicated at block 95 to determine whether another gateway station is available for affiliation this check being made using the data in the list.