I'm not an idiot, BUT

[russell-r]

I have to ask the question. I have been asked to extend my IP range. We currently have a 255.255.254.0 network - however they need more IP addresses. So, I offered to subnet it to a 255.255.252.0 subnet giving them 1022 from 510. My boss wants to know why we couldn't use 255.255.253.0. Can I do this? I've never heard of this nor have i done it..

[russell-r]

please forgive me... i had a brain freeze... disregard this question! thanks....

[Harold Ritter]

The network or subnet mask represents the portion on the IP address that is allocated for the network or subnet and therefor has to be contiguous (binary bits).

254 is 1111 1110

253 is 1111 1101

252 is 1111 1100

As you can see 252 and 254 are contiguous but 253 is not.

Hope this helps,