Types of IP addresses

Types of IP addresses

What is IP Address?

The IP address is a familiar for most computer users. An IP address is the unique numerical address of a device in a computer network that uses Internet Protocol for communication.

An IP address consists of four numbers and each can contain one to three digits. These numbers are separated with a single dot (.). These four numbers can range from 0 to 255 each.

Types of IP addresses

The IP addresses can be classified into two Types. They are listed below.

1) Static IP addresses

2) Dynamic IP addresses

Static IP Addresses

As the name indicates, the static IP addresses usually never change but they may be changed as a result of network administration. They serve as a permanent Internet address and provide a simple and reliable way for the communication. From the static IP address of a system, we can get many details such as the continent, country, region and city in which a computer is located, The Internet Service Provider (ISP) that serves that particular computer and non-technical information such as precise latitude and longitude of the country,  and the locale of the computer. It is the easiest system to find your IP address by http://whatismyip.org/.

Dynamic IP Addresses

Dynamic IP address are the second category. These are temporary IP addresses. These IP addresses are assigned to a computer when they get connected to the Internet each time. They are actually borrowed from a pool of IP addresses, shared over various computers. Since limited number of static IP addresses are available, ISPs usually reserve the portion of their assigned addresses for sharing among their subscribers in this way.

Static IP addresses are considered as less secure than dynamic IP addresses because they are easier to track.

There are only two version of IP address. These are IP Version 4 and IP Version 6