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Every device that connects to a home Wi-Fi router or the wider internet needs a unique identifier so data packets know where to send information.

What is this numeric identifier called?

Q: What is this numeric identifier called?

An IP address. An IP address labels a device's location on a network the way a postal address labels a house, letting routers forward data packets to the correct destination. Because the older IPv4 system only offers about 4.3 billion possible addresses, the internet has been steadily migrating to IPv6, which uses a much longer address format with room for trillions of devices.

An IP address ✓
A MAC checksum
A DNS token

An IP address
An IP address labels a device's location on a network the way a postal address labels a house, letting routers forward data packets to the correct destination. Because the older IPv4 system only offers about 4.3 billion possible addresses, the internet has been steadily migrating to IPv6, which uses a much longer address format with room for trillions of devices.

An IP address is the numeric identifier every internet-connected device needs, functioning like a postal address so routers know exactly where to send each packet of data. Without one, information traveling across a network would have no destination to reach, the digital equivalent of mailing a letter with no address on it.

A MAC checksum and a DNS token are not standard networking terms describing device addressing — MAC addresses do identify hardware at a more local level, and DNS translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses, but neither functions as the general internet-wide identifier being described here.

The older IPv4 addressing system can only produce about 4.3 billion unique addresses, a number the world has essentially exhausted given how many phones, computers, and smart devices now exist, which is why the internet has been gradually shifting to IPv6, whose vastly longer address format can accommodate trillions of devices.

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