Every device connected to the internet has an IP address, or Internet Protocol address. There are public and private IP addresses. The IP address 192.168. 0.1 is a private IP address and is the default for some home broadband routers, primarily D-Link and Netgear models.

To access the Internet, your computer needs a public IP address, which is usually assigned to you by your ISP. These days, your router or gateway allows computers on your network to share that one public IP address. To do this, however, each computer still needs its own, private address—and your router will have one, too. This private IP address does not need to be globally unique, because it is not a direct access address—that is, no one can access the IP address 192.168. 0.1 outside of a private network.

Among these addresses, IANA has reserved certain blocks of numbers to be private. These are:

These private IPs total about 17.9 million different addresses, all reserved for use on private networks. Therefore, a router's private IP does not need to be unique.