What does the address 255.255.255.255 represent?

• A. A broadcast to all hosts on the current network.
• B. A private network address.
• C. A multicast address.
• D. A loopback address.

Answer: (A)

In IPv4, 255.255.255.255 is the limited broadcast address. It sends a message to all hosts on the local network segment, with routers not forwarding this traffic beyond the current link. This is commonly used for discovery or initial communication when a device doesn’t yet know its IP configuration, such as during DHCP. It isn’t a private address (private ranges like 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, or 172.16–172.31.x.x are for internal addressing), it isn’t a multicast address (multicast uses 224.0.0.0/4 and targets a group of hosts), and it isn’t a loopback address (loopback is 127.0.0.0/8, used to reach the same device). So this address specifically represents a broadcast to all hosts on the current network.