Common Protocols Multicast Addresses Ethernet Numbers Tech Essays Internet Course Solaris Information Misc. IDS Sniffers Vulnerability Scanners Port Scanners Network Monitoring Firewall Ping NetBIOS Password Packet Tools Promiscuous Detection Fingerprinting Phone Steganography HTML NT Misc. In a bridged network, no correspondence is required between addresses and paths. Put another way, addresses don't imply anything about where hosts are physically attached to the network.
Any address can appear at any location.
In contrast, routing requires more thoughtful address assignment, corresponding to physical placement. Bridging relies heavily on broadcasting. This is one of bridging's most severe limitations, since this is a very inefficient method of data delivery, and can trigger broadcast storms . In networks with low speed links, this can introduce crippling overhead. IP, designed as a wide-area networking protocol, is rarely bridged because of the large networks it typically interconnects.