To the Internet at large it will look as if everyone connected to the router in your home or office is using the same IP address (i.e. your network’s public IP address), therefore all the data that’s destined for any user in your home or office will pass through your router to get to the intended recipient.
MAC addresses allow data intended to go to a specific device (a computer, tablet, smart TV, etc.) on your network to make it to that specific device, and that device only.
Of course this is a very non-technical and simplified explanation but it explains generally what a MAC address is used for. Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, also called Ethernet addresses, are 6-byte-long (48-bit-long) binary numbers. For convenience, most computers list MAC addresses as 12-digit hexadecimal numbers.
MAC addresses represent a single NIC or Ethernet port, so these addresses are often called a unicast Ethernet address. The term unicast is simply a formal way to refer to the fact that the address represents one interface to the Ethernet LAN.
Each device MAC Address should be unique in order to send/receive data successfully.
Imagine MAC addresses like people addresses or phone numbers. You can’t have two persons have the same MAC Address. The thing about MAC address is that it’s only used in LANs. It’s an address that is only usable inside a local network. You can’t send data to a device in a different network using it’s MAC as destination, but you can send data to devices in your local networks using MAC address as identifier.
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