Topic 3.4-Network hardware

What a computer needs to be able to access a network

A NIC (network interface card)

A MAC (media access contol) address

A static unique identifier (in hexadecimal) given to devices when they are manufactured created using a manufacturer and serial code stored in the NIC which is used when communicating in LAN networks.

An IP address

A unique identifier (static or dynamic) given to devices communicating over a WAN which makes it possible to deliver data to devices. They change if the device changes networks.

IPv4

A type of IP address represented as 4 blocks of denary numbers between 0 and 255 separated by full stops where each block is 1 byte (8 bits) and each address is 4 bytes. It has allowed for 4 billion unique addresses however this is not enough as there are over 8 billion people in the world.

IPv6

A type of IP address represented as 8 blocks of 4 hexadecimal digits each separated by colons. Each block is 2 bytes (16 bits) meaning the total comes out to 16 bytes (128 bits). It provides more than 1 billion unique addresses for each person

A router

A device that sends data to a destination on a network. It can assign IP addresses and connect a local network to the internet.