Ethernet (IEEE 802.1D(2)) is the technology that dominates the local area networking market. As a result, this technology is inexpensive and well known by most users. There has been an interest in using ethernet technology for wide area networks. Unfortunately the technology purposefully has a number of built-in limitations. For instance, IEEE 802.1D(2) limits the maximum diameter as seven hubs. When the number of hubs exceeds the maximum diameter, the topology updates sent using BPDU (Broadcast Protocol Data Units) packets may never reach their intended nodes. As a result, such nodes may become isolated even though they are physically connected to the network. Another problem arises due to the MAC (Medium Access Control) address awareness requirements. Each bridge node in a spanning tree must be aware of all the MAC addresses and their locations in the spanning tree. In a wide area network (WAN) this results in the storage of huge numbers of MAC addresses and becomes technically and economically infeasible for large WANs.
Thus there exists a need for an ethernet wide area network and method that overcomes these limitations.