This is a private IPv4 network Internet Protocol (IP) address. Any network router or computer may be set to operate using this IP address. Private addresses are used to run private networks. Computers in such a network are thus allocated their IP addresses to communicate with other computers in the network. The network must be an internal network, so no Internet is involved here. As more and more people rushed to get connected to the Internet, the number of publicly registered IP addresses became remained static, and this led to the emergence of IPv4 IP addresses to counter the shortage. The IPv4 are set at the factory by the manufacture, but it may be altered via the network router using the administrative functions. The main attraction of private IP addresses like 192.168.1.1, is that they may be used many times over in different networks without the possibility of creating network conflict, which is brought about by having more than one computer having the same IP address. The downside to these private addresses is that they may not be used to communicate over the Internet since the routers for the Internet are set in a way to block any traffic that is traveling on a private address. This might seem to be a great disadvantage, but it may in fact, turn out to be beneficial. The outside networks cannot connect to the private network, and so the private network cannot be vulnerable to intrusive activities by imprudently curious or even malicious remote users.
However, the private network may wish to communicate with outside networks. Should such a need to communicate arise, there would be a need to have a go-between gateway so that the other network may be presented with an IP address that is “reachable”. The routers also would need to allow Internet traffic between the two networks to be exchanged. The go-between in these circumstances may sometimes turn out to be a Network Address Translation (or NAT) or it may be a proxy server. But the administrators should look out for one thing. The two networks may turn out to have a shared IP address among its client’s computers. If such a situation arose, then there would be conflict issues and such communication would be difficult to establish.
Users may sometimes experience difficulties when accessing the router through 192.168.1.1, primarily due to invalid browser settings. The way to deal with such a problem is to clear all the browser settings as well as disabling the anti-malware and the firewall. The number 192.168.1.1 may also be the default address for a device. Many network devices, including those manufactured by LinkSys, use 192.168.1.1 as their default IP address. Again, this may cause conflicts if these default addresses are not changed and two devices are connected. One way to avoid this problem is that before you add a device to a network; ensure that the default IP address is not the one being used by the device or whether it is already being used in the network.
