VLANs compliant with IEEE302.1q are generally used to connect multiple networks that share a common physical medium but which are to be kept separate from one another. In some cases VLANs are operated on public networks that are operated by providers in order to keep the various company networks separate. Consequently VLAN tags may be used both in the LAN and over the WAN path—VLAN tagged LAN packets therefore require an additional VLAN tag for transmission over WAN. For control over VLAN tagging, the actions performed by each port can be defined separately.