Brouters

Brouters are a combination of router and bridge. This is a special type of equipment used for networks that can be either bridged or routed, based on the protocols being forwarded. Brouters are complex, fairly expensive pieces of equipment and as such are rarely used.

A Brouter transmits two types of traffic at the exact same time: bridged traffic and routed traffic. For bridged traffic, the Brouter handles the traffic the same way a bridge or switch would, forwarding data based on the physical address of the packet. This makes the bridged traffic fairly fast, but slower than if it were sent directly through a bridge because the Brouter has to determine whether the data packet should be bridged or routed.