IP addresses should never have existed 🤔

Everybody knows that MAC addresses are unique device identifiers. So why did we introduce IP addresses instead of using MAC addresses?

MAC addresses are used to identify devices within a local network, while IP addresses are used to identify devices across the internet.

MAC addresses are unique, random sequences of hexadecimal characters, like 00-B0-D0-63-C2-26, assigned to network interfaces for communications within a local network segment. However, using MAC addresses for global communication would be impractical. Due to the fact that they are unstructured and not routable accross different networks, if we were to send a packet over the internet using MAC addresses, we would need to scan the entire internet (comprising billions of connected devices and networks) to find the destination, which would be extremely time-consuming.

To optimize this process, we introduced IP addresses.

IP addresses are logical sequence of bites that simplify our lives by incorporating a network section. An IP address consists of two main parts: the network portion and the host portion. This structure allows us to quickly eliminate a vast number of devices that do not belong to the target network. Once we locate the correct network, we can use the host portion to identify the specific destination machine. This hierarchical addressing system significantly speeds up the process of finding and communicating with devices on the internet.

In summary, while MAC addresses are essential for local network identification, IP addresses enable efficient and scalable global communication so both are important.