WANs in a LAN Society

I want to congratulate you on your cover story ``Linking LANs'' in the December 1993 issue. The article was outstanding. I have been a professional in the WAN (wide-area network) arena for quite some time, and I thought that I knew it all. Your approach has really made me look at my area from the other side of the fence, the LAN--something that I'd thought I had done before, but, just as you said, in a ``culturally hampered'' way.

Paul Liesenberg

Frankfurt, Germany

Regarding your cover story ``Linking LANs'': The article implies division of IP address space on organizational boundaries. No, no, no! Domain names reflect organizational boundaries. IP address assignment and subnetting are only related to network topology and address assignment authority (stand-alone or delegated from the NIC [network interface card]). Mismanagement of IP address spac e as described in this article is probably the prime cause for the rapid decrease in available addresses from the NIC.

James Cutler

Troy, MI

We can see how a reader might misconstrue the design of our examples in the text box ``TCP/IP Addressing'' on page 84 (December 1993). The confusion comes from the often strong relationship between the operational organization and its geographic organization. A few words specifically about network topology were called for and would have prevented anyone from being misled. Right you are about the mismanagement of IP address space being a major problem. Thank you for your insightful comment.

--Eds.

I read your article on LANs/WANs (``Linking LANs''), and I want to thank you for what was for me a very timely piece. We are just now grappling with these issues as we prepare to issue an RFP (Request For Proposal) for global X.25 and value-added data services. Your article cleared up a number of hazy areas. Thanks.

D. Dion

Rome, Italy