IP currently uses 32-bit addresses. If we could redesign IP to use the 6-byte MAC as IP addresses instead of the current 32-bit addresses, would we be able to eliminate the need for ARP? Can you explain to me in brief about this?

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The answer to your question is probably yes. But it wouldn't make sense at this point to change the design of IPv4 as we are in the course of replacing it with IPv6. IPv6 has a 128-bit address and uses Neighbor Discovery as a replacement for ARP.

This was first published in May 2007

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