For use in a computer system having a bus coupled to first and second devices and network interface circuitry, a system for, and method of, allowing one of the first and second devices to communicate with a computer network via the network interface circuitry and a computer system incorporating the system or the method. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) transport stack circuitry, coupled between the bus and the network interface circuitry, that provides socket-layer access to the network interface circuitry via the bus and (2) channel control circuitry, associated with the transport stack circuitry, that establishes unique channels for allowing peer-to-peer, socket-layer access between the first and second devices and the transport interface circuitry within the computer system.