2. IP address

Every networked device, from servers, to PCs, to smart-TVs, needs to have a unique identity. This is the device's "IP Address".

No two IP addresses are the same.

IPv4

The most popular type of IP number is IPv4 (IP version 4). IPv4 allows each device to have a unique 32 bit binary number address. For example,

                       0101 1001 1001 0001 0100 1101 0110 0110

This is not exactly human-friendly, but it it a real address (it is the IP address for the teach-ict.com web server in binary format).

To improve readability, this binary sequence is broken into 8-digit chunks called octets. These octets are then changed into denary numbers, separated by dots.

So an IP address in human-friendly form looks like

                                  89.145.77.102
    

This is how IP addresses appear in most applications.