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Subnet 202.70.64.0/19 for 100-800 hosts

Short answer

Use VLSM, largest first: C gets 202.70.64.0/22, B 202.70.68.0/23, D 202.70.70.0/23, A 202.70.72.0/25. Total host-address wastage is 368.

You are a private contractor hired by a large company to set up the network for their enterprise and you are given a large number of consecutive IP addresses starting at 202.70.64.0/19. Suppose that four departments A, B, C and D request 100, 500, 800 and 400 addresses respectively. How can the subnetting be performed so that address wastage will be minimum?

A /19 block contains 2^(32−19) = 2^13 = 8192 addresses, so the pool is large enough.

Method (VLSM): each department needs hosts + 2 addresses (network address and broadcast address cannot be given to hosts). Choose the smallest block 2ⁿ ≥ hosts + 2, where n is the number of host bits and prefix = 32 − n. Allocate the largest block first, one after another without overlap, so every block starts on a boundary that is a multiple of its size and the waste is minimum.

Step 1: Block size for each department

DeptHostsHosts + 2Block 2ⁿnPrefixSubnet mask
A1001021287/25255.255.255.128
B5005025129/23255.255.254.0
C800802102410/22255.255.252.0
D4004025129/23255.255.254.0

Step 2: Allocation (largest first) from 202.70.64.0/19

DeptNetwork addressUsable host rangeBroadcast addressMaskUnused hosts
C202.70.64.0/22202.70.64.1 – 202.70.67.254202.70.67.255255.255.252.0222
B202.70.68.0/23202.70.68.1 – 202.70.69.254202.70.69.255255.255.254.010
D202.70.70.0/23202.70.70.1 – 202.70.71.254202.70.71.255255.255.254.0110
A202.70.72.0/25202.70.72.1 – 202.70.72.126202.70.72.127255.255.255.12826

Step 3: Wastage

DeptUsable addressesNeededWasted
C1022800222
B51050010
D510400110
A12610026
Total21681800368

Addresses allocated: 2176 of 8192. The remaining 6016 addresses (202.70.72.128/25, 202.70.73.0/24, 202.70.74.0/23, 202.70.76.0/22, 202.70.80.0/20) stay free for future departments and are not counted as wastage.

Answer: A: 202.70.72.0/25; B: 202.70.68.0/23; C: 202.70.64.0/22; D: 202.70.70.0/23. Total wastage = 368 host addresses.

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

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