An administrator is given the IP Address of 192.168.100.124 and needs 64 subnets. How many hosts per network are allowed?

Achieving 4 usable hosts is not derivable from the remaining bits in this calculation; the closest valid value requires 3 host bits (2^3 - 2 = 6 hosts), which leaves only 5 subnet bits supporting a maximum of 32 subnets rather than 64.

Allocating enough host bits to support 8 usable hosts would consume at least 4 host bits, leaving fewer than 6 subnet bits and making 64 subnets impossible from a Class C address space.

6 usable hosts requires 3 host bits (2^3 - 2 = 6), leaving only 5 subnet bits that support at most 32 subnets, which is half the required 64.

A default Class C network provides 8 host bits in the final octet. To support 64 subnets, 6 bits must be borrowed for the subnet portion because 2 to the power of 6 equals 64. This leaves 2 host bits, which yields 2 to the power of 2 minus 2 reserved addresses (network and broadcast), resulting in exactly 2 usable host addresses per subnet.