Structure of the Internet: IP addresses  From Wikibooks, open
books for an open world Jump to: navigation, search  UNIT 2 - ⇑
Structure of the Internet ⇑  ← Packet switching IP addresses
Domain names →  IP Address - numerical label assigned to each
device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer
network that uses the Internet Protocol  Every device attached
to a network has a number assigned to it. This unique number is
called the IP Address, and you might be familiar with the format
of:  nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn e.g.  Currently the most common form of IP
Address is IPv4 which uses 32 bits to store an address. This
means that there are theoretically 2^{32} = 4,294,967,296
different IP Addresses that can exist. However, due to the
allocation of IP ranges to different organisations and tasks,
the number is lower.  An IP address (version 4) in both dot-
decimal notation and binary code  An IPv4 is split into 4 chunks
as shown above. Different ranges of IP addresses are categorised
differently, with the first