ASL STEM

Definition

abbreviation for Internet protocol address, numbered address assigned to an Internet host. Traditionally, IP addresses are 32bit, which means that numbered addresses have four sections separated by dots, each a decimal number between 0 and 255. This is also called IPv4, and can provide a maximum of 4,294,967,296 different IP addresses. A newer specification called IPv6 is being developed to create the huge number of extra IP addresses that will be needed in the future. IPv6 uses six sections, each with numbers between 0 and 255, providing 281,474,976,710,656 IP addresses (65,536 times more than IPv4).

Source: Hutchinson Dictionary of Computing and the Internet. Abingdon, Oxfordshire, GBR: Helicon Publishing, 2005. p 309.