Dell PowerConnect 5316M User Manual page 330

W
WAN
Wide Area Networks. Networks that cover a large geographical area.
Wildcard Mask
Specifies which IP address bits are used, and which bits are ignored. A wild switch module mask of
255.255.255.255 indicates that no bit is important. A wildcard of 0.0.0.0 indicates that all the bits are important.
For example, if the destination IP address 149.36.184.198 and the wildcard mask is 255.36.184.00, the first two
bits of the IP address are used, while the last two bits are ignored.
314 Glossary