A subnetwork is a separately identifiable part of a larger network that typically represents a certain limited number of host computers, the hosts in a building or geographic area, or the hosts on an individual local area network. Companies often create subnetworks (sometimes called subnets) when setting up connection to the Internet as a way to manage the limited number of Internet Protocol addresses (IP addresses) that are available with Internet Protocol version 4.
This was last updated in June 2000