Remotely managed bridge with TCP/IP based firewall.

The job of the bridge is to examine the destination of the data packets one at a time and decide whether or not to pass the packets to the other side of the Ethernet segment. The result is a faster, quieter network with less collisions. Reducing traffic on segments for which the packet does not need to travel.

The bridging code decides whether to bridge data or to drop it not by looking at the protocol type (IP, IPX, Apple talk,NetBEUI), but by looking at the MAC-address unique to each NIC.

In addition, you can overcome hardware incompatibilities with a bridge, without leaving the address-range of your IP-net or subnet. 

ie: Connecting a TX based hardware to a VG hardware network and/or a token ring network.

ie: It's possible to bridge between different physical media like 10 Base T and 100 Base TX.

Not to mention many other possibilities.
(10BaseT, 10Base2, 10Base5, ext.)