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MAC address Last modified: Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Short for Media Access Control address, a hardware address that uniquely identifies each node of a network. In IEEE 802 networks, the Data Link Control (DLC) layer of the OSI Reference Model is divided into two sublayers: the Logical Link Control (LLC) layer and the Media Access Control (MAC) layer. The MAC layer interfaces directly with the network medium. Consequently, each different type of network medium requires a different MAC layer. On networks that do not conform to the IEEE 802 standards but do conform to the OSI Reference Model, the node address is called the Data Link Control (DLC) address. See a breakdown of the seven OSI layers in the Quick Reference section of Webopedia.

IEEE's Public OUI registrations Information on how a company applies for a MAC address as well as a database of existing MAC address for many companies.