A sum-network is a directed acyclic network in which all terminal nodes
demand the `sum' of the independent information observed at the source nodes.
Many characteristics of the well-studied multiple-unicast network communication
problem also hold for sum-networks due to a known reduction between instances
of these two problems. Our main result is that unlike a multiple unicast
network, the coding capacity of a sum-network is dependent on the message
alphabet. We demonstrate this using a construction procedure and show that the
choice of a message alphabet can reduce the coding capacity of a sum-network
from 1 to close to 0
