With this, it can be specified to which levels of the OSI model the application can write to, making the application transportable to other networks. In a NetBIOS LAN enviroment, computers are known on the system by a name. Each computer on the network has a permanent name that is programmed in various different ways. These names will be discussed in more detail below. PC's on a NetBIOS LAN communicate either by establishing a session or by using NetBIOS datagram or broadcast methods.
Sessions allow for a larger message to be sent and handle error detection and correction.
Datagram and broadcast methods allow one computer to communicate with several other computers at the same time, but are limited in message size. There is no error detection or correction using these datagram or broadcast methods. However, datagram communication allows for communication without having to establish a session. The allocation of these blocks in memory is dependant on the user program. These NCB's are divided into fields, these are reserved for input and output respectively.