Question

Discuss the use of these addresses in the TCP/IP Protocol model. Differentiate between unicast, broadcast, multicast, and any-cast addresses.

Answer 1

Data is transported over a network by three simple methods i.e. Unicast, Broadcast, and Multicast. So let’s begin to summarize the difference between these three:

Unicast address       :   Used to send data from a source host to destination host
Broadcast address   :    Used to send data from a source host to all destinations
Multicast address   :   Used to send data from a source to multiple destination hosts whoever wants to receive the data
Any Cast address   :   A same anycast address is assigned to group of hosts. Anytime , only a single nearest host receives the packet.