MAC Address and

ALOHA
Akshat Modi
20100BTBDCEIM07387
Section= F
MAC Address
1. MAC Address
MAC Address
• MAC Address stands for Media Access Control.
• MAC Address is the physical address, which uniquely identifies each device on a given network.
• To make communication between two networked devices, we need IP and MAC address.
• MAC Address is assigned to NIC ( Network Interface Card ) of each device that can be connected to internet.
• It is globally unique, 2 devices cannot have same MAC addresses.
• It is represented in Hexadecimal format, 12-digit and 48 bits long.
• It is 12 digits or 6-byte hexadecimal number, represented in colon-hexadecimal notation format. It is divided
into six octets, and each octet contains 8 bits.
• The first 24 bits represent the OUI ( Organization Unique Identifier ) rest 24 bits are for NIC/ Vender
Specific.
• It works on the Data Link Layer of the OSI Model.
• It is provided by device vendor at the time of manufacturing and embedded in its NIC, which can’t be
damaged.

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Format Of MAC Address
▪ The first octet are used in OUI. These MAC prefixes are assigned to each
organization or vendor by IEEE Registration Authority Committee.
▪ Some example of OUI of known vendor are:
CC:46:D6 – Cisco
3C:5A:B4 – Google Inc
▪ The last three octets are NIC specific and used by manufacturer to each NIC card.
▪ The MAC Address can be represented in below these formats:
Hyphen-Hexadecimal Notation : 00-0b-56-b1-c0-6e
Colon-Hexadecimal Notation : 00:0b:56:b1:c0:6e
Period-separated Hexadecimal Notation : 000.b56.b1c.06e

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Types Of MAC Address
• Unicast MAC • Multicast MAC • Broadcast MAC
Address Address Address
A Unicast MAC frame Multicast Addresses Broadcast Address
is send to interface enables the source sends the data to all the
which is assigned to a device to transmit a data devices within the
specific NIC. frame to multuple network.
device or NIC’s.

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