A technique for providing data unit concatenation in a shared
communications network is disclosed. The technique establishes a
distinction between a first address space and a second address space
within one or more shared communications networks, such as a wireless
local area network, in a telecommunications system. At a transmitter
node, data units arriving from one or more source nodes are packaged
together if they are intended a network accessible through a receiver and
then are transmitted to the receiver node. During the transfer of data
units across the telecommunications system, the addressing mechanism will
use either source and destination nodes or transmitter and receiver
nodes, depending on the address space relevant at the moment of
transmission. The technique increases utilization efficiency, because
overhead attributed to headers, acknowledgements and interframe gaps is
reduced.