A network edge device may be placed at a location to participate in a VLAN using a specific VLAN ID without expressly programming the network edge device to use that specific VLAN ID. The network edge device is connected to a network to receive ingressing frames from the network and to send egressing frames to the network. The network edge device copies a specific VLAN ID from an ingressing VLAN message into memory and subsequently reads the specific VLAN ID from the memory for use in tagging frames egressing from the network edge device with the specific VLAN ID so that the egressing frames are VLAN conformant. The network edge device may communicate with non-edge devices at the same location as the network edge device.