Did you know that certain IP addresses are reserved for private use within a local area network (LAN)? The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has designated this IP address ranges to conform with the standards set by RFC 1918 addresses.
Private IP addresses cannot be routed on the public Internet and are intended for use within a private LAN, usually behind a Network Address Translation (NAT) device or proxy server if you need to access a public network like the Internet. Private IP addresses are particularly useful for organizations that don’t have enough public IP addresses to distribute on their LAN.
This is a common practice for many organizations that connect their networks to the Internet. These reserved address ranges allow organizations to assign internal IP addresses without worrying about the costs of public IP addressing.
Benefits of Private IP Addressing for Businesses and Organizations
In a nutshell, a private IP address is an IP address that is not directly accessible from the Internet. This is because private IP addresses are reserved for use within a local area network (LAN) and are not routed on the public Internet.
The use of private IP addresses has become increasingly common in recent years, especially with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the need to connect large numbers of devices to a single network. By using private IP addresses, organizations can conserve their public IP addresses and assign internal IP addresses without purchasing additional public IP addresses.
Private IP addresses follow a specific set of address ranges reserved by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to conform with the standards set by RFC 1918 addresses. These address ranges include:
10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255
These ranges are not routable on the public Internet, meaning they are only used within a private LAN. If a device with a private IP address needs to connect to the public Internet, it must do so through a NAT device or proxy server that translates the private IP address to a public IP address.
Overall, using private IP addresses has become an essential tool for organizations that need to conserve their public IP addresses and connect large numbers of devices to a single network.