Which range is a private network address?

• A. 127.0.0.0 - 127.255.255.255
• B. 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
• C. 224.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255
• D. 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255

Answer: (B)

Private IPv4 addresses are reserved for use inside a private network and are not routable on the public Internet. They let devices in a home or small office share a single public connection without globally unique addresses. The block 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255 is one of the private ranges defined for this purpose, and it is the one most commonly seen in home networks. Routers typically assign addresses in this range to devices, and Network Address Translation (NAT) lets those devices access the Internet by mapping private addresses to a single public address. The other options correspond to addresses used for different purposes: one is the loopback range, intended for testing the local device, and another is a multicast range used for one-to-many communication rather than private addressing. (Note that there are other private ranges as well, such as 10.0.0.0/8, not shown here.)