The internet can be seen as a huge network of devices. Whenever a device, such as your computer or mobile phone, goes online, it needs an IP (Internet Protocol) address. The standard IP address, IPv4, consists of four groups of a maximum of 8 numbers between 0 and 255. This means that the combinations for IP addresses are not endless. In fact, we’ve now ‘run out’ of IPv4 addresses.
An IP address is incredibly important since it makes it possible to connect, communicate and exchange information all over the world.
To give an example: imagine you’re on Google and you search for “what is an IP Address?” on your mobile phone. When you do this, your browser will send a request to Google.com with your own IP address attached to it. Google will then use your IP address to send the search results back. If there were no IP addresses and 3.5 billion searches per day, this would be impossible.
Watch the following video if you’d like to know more:
