A hardware device used to connect LANs so that they can exchange data. Bridges can work with networks that use different wiring or network protocols, joining two or more LAN segments to form what appears to be a single network.
A bridge operates at the data-link layer of the OSI Reference Model for computer-to-computer communications. It manages the flow of traffic between the two LANs by reading the address of every packet of data that it receives.
See also brouter; gateway; OSI Reference Model; router.