Public IP Address vs Private IP address

Just as your network's public IP address is issued by your ISP, your router issues private (or internal) IP addresses to each network device inside your network. This provides unique identification for devices that are within your network, such as your computer, your video conferencing systems, and so on.

Video conferencing can use both public and private IP addresses to send information (video/audio/data). When using a cloud video service, like Easymeeting, you typically will need to assign a public IP address to your video conferencing system in order for it to function optimally because private IP addresses never leave your network and cloud services require that you communicate over the internet outside of your network.

How do you know what is a private IP or public IP?

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have excluded ranges withheld for private network use.

These private IP ranges are as follows:

• 10.0.0.0 … 10.255.255.255
• 172.16.0.0 … 172.31.255.255
• 192.168.0.0 … 192.168.255.255

Why is this important?

For many companies that have used video conferencing within their own network and wish to communicate outside of their network (via video system to video system or using a cloud service), they will require some network configuration before being able to make calls successfully outside of their network.