An Acronym for Virtual Private Network.

A VPN is a connection between two remote points merging them together to form one virtual network.

This is usually done using tunnelling, or alternatively, if you have far too much money, by sending data over a dedicated data circut provided by your telco.

The MetaNet is a very different kind of VPN, in that it is multipoint, and doesn't do encryption, authentication, or compression.

Why not? Those things sound kinda useful -- CraigBox

Simple answer: too difficult to code :) more important getting the easy bit going first. Also encryption/compression could very easily overwealm some peoples gateway boxen -- PerryLorier