Broadcast address

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A broadcast address is a network address used to transmit to all devices connected to a multiple-access communications network. A message sent to a broadcast address may be received by all network-attached hosts.

In contrast, a multicast address is used to address a specific group of devices, and a unicast address is used to address a single device.

For network layer communications, a broadcast address may be a specific IP address. At the data link layer on Ethernet networks, it is a specific MAC address.