A Corporate LAN assigned a /24 subnet contains how many IP addresses?

A /24 subnet indicates that the first 24 bits of the IP address are reserved for the network part, leaving the remaining 8 bits available for host addresses. In binary, each bit can either be a 0 or a 1, which means that with 8 bits, there are 2^8 possible combinations of IP addresses.

Calculating this, 2 raised to the power of 8 equals 256. This total includes all addressable IP addresses within the subnet, which would be from 0 to 255 if we consider a standard range.

However, it's important to note that while a /24 subnet allows for 256 IP addresses, two of these addresses are reserved: one for the network address (the first address, where all host bits are 0) and one for the broadcast address (the last address, where all host bits are 1). Thus, while there are 256 addresses technically available, only 254 can typically be assigned to hosts.

Therefore, the correct answer reflects the total number of addresses in a /24 subnet, confirming that this option accurately captures the total capacity of the subnet, which is 256 possible IP addresses.