traffic transmitted over long fat networks can be expensive and / or slow . the amount of traffic is reduced by application of the present invention which introduces a manipulator device at each end of a long fat network . the manipulator device emulates the opposing end - side equipment for the local - side equipment and then communications over the long fat network using an established tunnel . thus , the protocol exchanges that would normally be transmitted over the long fat network in setting up , tearing down and controlling a communications session are reduced or eliminated . yet an alternate embodiment may use a single manipulator device at a central operator premises of the lfn . the single manipulator device may replace domain names that are embedded within a markup language file with their ip addresses .