subnet

[elec123]

Hi,

I am doing a project using a wimax base station and subscriber station. The IP address of the base station is 192.168.10.2 and the IP address of the subscriber station is 192.168.10.3.

When i want to analyse the performane of the system a computer can be connected via ethernet port to either the base or subscriber station.

The guy helping me on his project says when i connect the computer all devices on the network must have the same subnet, so in windows he went into Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Propertes and changed the computers IP to 192.168.10.50 and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0

All works fine, but i do not fully understand what hes done, does he mean that all devices on the network must have an IP of 192.168.10.xxx? what is a subnet?

I would just like to understand this better.

Help on this would be great,

Thanks in advance.

elec123

 

[Sceadwian]

Subnets allow large networks to be broken down into smaller chunks to allow the hardware to deal with only portions of it. Wikipedia has an entra that describes it well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnet_mask#Binary_subnet_masks

It includes some external links for further study that explain more about how the IP address system works.