Your Current Internet IP Address is:
38.103.63.16

IP addresses: Networks and hosts...A basic overview

An IP address is a 32-bit number that uniquely identifies a host (computer or other device, such as a printer or router) on a TCP/IP network.

IP addresses are normally expressed in dotted-decimal format, with four numbers separated by periods, such as 192.168.155.166. To understand how subnet masks are used to distinguish between hosts, networks, and subnetworks, examine an IP address in binary notation.

For example, the dotted-decimal IP address 192.168.155.166 is (in binary notation) the 32 bit number 10111000000101010001001110100110. This number is difficult for humans to make sense of, so we divide it into four parts of eight binary digits. The 32-bit number ranges from 0 to 4294967295. This means that theoretically, the Internet can contain approximately 4.3 billion unique objects.

These eight bit blocks are known as octets. The example IP address, then, becomes 11000000.10101000.10011011.10100110. You can see that the octets have started to make a little more sense now, so for most uses, convert the binary address into dotted-decimal format (192.168.155.166). The decimal numbers separated by periods are the octets converted from binary to decimal notation.

For a TCP/IP wide area network (WAN) to work efficiently as a collection of networks, the routers that pass packets of data between networks do not know the exact location of a host for which a packet of information is destined. Routers only know what network the host is a member of and use information stored in their route table to determine how to get the packet to the destination host's network. After the packet is delivered to the destination's network, the packet is delivered to the appropriate host. For this process to work, an IP address has two parts. The first part of an IP address is used as a network address, the last part as a host address. 

So continuing on with our sample above 192.168.155 is identifying the Network part of the address...The final octet identifies the host 166.

The subnet mask

The subnet mask not only determines the size of a subnet, but it can also help you pinpoint where the end points on the subnet are if you're given any IP address within that subnet. The reason it's called a subnet "mask" is that it literally masks out the host bits and leaves only the Network ID that begins the subnet.

IP addresses are assigned to orginazations in blocks. Each block belongs to one of three classes: class A, class B, or class C. You can tell what class an IP address is by the value in its first octet.

There are a couple of other classes but they are reserved for large organisations such as the Government & Military

Home Routers

A residential gateway (or home gateway), is a hardware device connecting a home network with a wide area network (WAN) or the Internet. The residential gateway provides port translation (NAT), allowing all the computers in a small network to share one IP address and Internet connection. The residential gateway may sit between the modem and the internal network, or a DSL or cable modem may be integrated into the residential gateway. A residential gateway often combines the functions of an IP router, multi-port Ethernet switch and WiFi access point. Residential gateways that include routing capabilities are converged devices and sometimes referred to as home routers or broadband routers with "broadband" in this case referring not to the router function but the Internet access function. Residential gateways are under standardization by the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI)

For Network help click here and for Broadband look here