The monitored system may be powered off, but must be connected to a power source and to the monitoring medium, typically a local area network (LAN) connection. IPMI can also function after the operating system has started, and exposes management data and structures to the system management software. IPMI prescribes only the structure and format of the interfaces as a standard, while detailed implementations may vary. An implementation of IPMI version 1.5 can communicate via a direct out-of-band local area network (LAN) or serial connection or via a side-band local area network (LAN) connection to a remote client. The side-band LAN connection utilizes the board network interface controller (NIC). This solution is less expensive than a dedicated LAN connection but also has limited bandwidth.