Whether you’ve heard it thrown around in a meeting, stumbled across it while setting up your Wi-Fi, or are just trying to figure out why your printer won’t connect to the network, subnet masks are all around you. We’re going to break this down together. By the end, you’ll know what a subnet mask is and why it matters to your everyday life—whether you’re a business owner or just someone who uses the Internet to work.
Here’s the quick version: a subnet mask is like a filter that helps your devices figure out who’s on the same network as the device. That’s it in a nutshell.
The long version is that a subnet mask defines the local network that isn’t part of the internet. These devices on the same network and subnet mask are able to communicate directly with one another without communicating to the gateway (internet). This has great privacy and performance benefits.
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