2 network classes – Asus RX3042H User Manual

Page 118

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IP Address, Network Masks, and Subnets

RX3042H User's Manual

106

Table 11.1. IP Address Structure

Field 1

Field 2

Field 3

Field 4

Network ID

Host ID

Network ID

Host ID

Network ID

Host ID

Class A

Class B

Class C

Here are some examples of valid IP addresses:

Class A: 10.30.6.125 (network = 10, host = 30.6.125)
Class B: 129.88.16.49 (network = 129.88, host = 16.49)
Class C: 192.60.201.11 (network = 192.60.201, host = 11)

11.2 Network classes

The three commonly used network classes are A, B, and C. (There

is also a class D but it has a special use beyond the scope of this

discussion.) These classes have different uses and characteristics.
Class A networks are the Internetʼs largest networks, each with

room for over 16 million hosts. Up to 126 of these huge networks

can exist, for a total of over 2 billion hosts. Because of their huge

size, these networks are used for WANs and by organizations at

the infrastructure level of the Internet, such as your ISP.
Class B networks are smaller but still quite large, each able to hold

over 65,000 hosts. There can be up to 16,384 class B networks

in existence. A class B network might be appropriate for a large

organization such as a business or government agency.
Class C networks are the smallest, only able to hold 254 hosts at

most, but the total possible number of class C networks exceeds 2

million (2,097,152 to be exact). LANs connected to the Internet are

usually class C networks.
Some important notes regarding IP addresses:
The class can be determined easily from field1:

field1 = 1-126:

Class A

field1 = 128-191:

Class B

field1 = 192-223:

Class C

(field1 values not shown are reserved for special uses)

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