Looks like the exponentiation operator got eaten up somewhere. 2 to the 32nd power (2^32) is
4,294,967,296.  2^3 == 8.

HTH,
Jose.

Kendall Shaw wrote:
quoted text
> In the networking section of the OpenBSD FAQ it suggests reading
> "Understanding IP addressing":
> 
> http://www.3com.com/other/pdfs/infra/corpinfo/en_US/501302.pdf
> 
> I'm having a hard time understanding it. In many places they use 2
> numbers, e.g. 2(21) or 232 (4,294,967,296). Can you understand what they
> are saying?
> 
> For example, on page 3:
> 
> "IPv4 defines a 32-bit address which means that there are
> only 232 (4,294,967,296) IPv4 addresses available."
> 
> 232 what?
> 
> On page 11:
> 
> "The first step in the planning process is to take the maximum number of
> subnets required and round up to the nearest power of two. For example,
> if an organization needs nine subnets, 23 (or 8) will not provide
> enough subnet addressing space, so the network administrator will
> need to round up to 24 (or 16)."
> 
> 23 or 8 what? Bits? What are 23 and 8 alternatives of? 24 or 16 looks
> like alternative prefix lengths for class A or B networks, but I don't
> get 23 or 8.
> 
> Kendall