Given 192.168.10.14 with a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask, what is the network address?

• A. 192.168.10.0
• B. 192.168.10.255
• C. 192.168.0.0
• D. 192.168.10.1

Answer: (A)

In IPv4 subnetting, the network address is found by masking the IP address with the subnet mask, which keeps the network portion and zeros out the host portion. Masking 192.168.10.14 with 255.255.255.0 zeros the last octet, yielding 192.168.10.0. With a 255.255.255.0 mask (a /24), the network range spans from 192.168.10.0 to 192.168.10.255. The network address is the first address in that range, and the broadcast address is the last. So 192.168.10.0 is the network address. The other options don’t fit: 192.168.10.255 is the broadcast address for this subnet, 192.168.0.0 would be the network address only if the mask were 255.0.0.0, and 192.168.10.1 is a host address within the subnet.