MAC (Media Access Control)

A unique identifier for a network device that uses a connection based on one of the IEEE 802 standards, such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth. It is factory-installed and is meant to unambiguously identify each host, as well as provide precision routing of packets in broadcast networks. The uniqueness of MAC addresses is controlled by a special committee of the IEEE consortium, which assigns blocks of several million identifiers to manufacturers at their request.