Method and apparatus for generating and receiving an extended Vendor Specific Attribute (VSA) is disclosed. In one aspect, a extended format VSA may be generated containing at least a Vendor-Type field having a predetermined value and a Extended Vendor-Type field. A Vendor Specific Attribute packet generated and received in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure may have a field sequence of , and may field lengths of Type=8 bits; Length=8 bits; Vendor-ID=32 bits; Vendor-Type 8 bits; Length=8 bits; Vendor-Extended-Type=32 bits; and Value=1 or more bytes.