Abstract: A system for an apparatus for extending the physical reach of an InfiniBand network. Methods and apparatus can connect an InfiniBand network to a long distance connection (e.g. WAN) while maintaining full 10 Gbit InfiniBand speeds and retaining the semantics specified by the InfiniBand Architecture (IBTA). A system can include an InfiniBand interface, a management block, packet routing, encapsulation/de-encapsulation, bulk memory buffer, and WAN interface, logic and circuits. The invention is applicable to efficiently moving large amounts of data over large distances using a single transport stream.