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NAT & Private Addressing

LearnViaNotes @learnvianotes· 2 min read

How millions of home devices share a single public IP address.

Devices on a home/office network are typically assigned private IP addresses (e.g. the 192.168.x.x range), which only have meaning inside that local network — the wider internet has no idea those addresses exist.

Why private IP ranges exist

Because IPv4 only offers ~4.3 billion addresses total — far fewer than the number of internet-connected devices worldwide — reserved private ranges (like 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x) can be reused identically inside millions of separate home/office networks without conflict, since NAT means only the router's single public IP needs to be globally unique.

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