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What Is NAT?

NAT, or Network Address Translation, is a process that allows multiple devices on a local network to share a single public IP address when communicating with the internet. It’s one of the core reasons a household with a dozen connected devices only needs one IP address assigned by its ISP. 

Here’s how it works: when a device on your network sends a request to the internet, your router substitutes that device’s private IP address with its public one before the data leaves. When a response comes back, the router translates the address in reverse and delivers the data to the correct device. 

NAT was developed partly as a practical solution to IPv4 address exhaustion, since public IP addresses are a limited resource. It also adds a layer of privacy by keeping individual device addresses hidden from the outside internet. Understanding NAT helps explain why knowing your public IP address is different from knowing the private addresses assigned to each device on your network.