What is NAT?
A simple guide to Network Address Translation and why many devices share one public IP.
NAT stands for Network Address Translation. It allows multiple devices in a local network to share one public IPv4 address.
This is one of the main reasons IPv4 could scale as long as it did.
Why NAT is used
It conserves IPv4 addresses and helps organize local networks, but it can also add complexity for peer-to-peer connections.