Find the broadcast address of a network from its IP address and subnet mask.
The broadcast address is the last address in a subnet — all host bits set to 1. It is calculated by ORing the network address with the inverse (bitwise NOT) of the subnet mask. Packets sent to this address are delivered to all hosts on the subnet.
Broadcast address
broadcast = network_address OR NOT(subnet_mask)
No — the broadcast address is reserved for reaching all hosts on the subnet simultaneously. Assigning it to a device would cause network conflicts and unpredictable behavior.
RFC 3021 defines /31 subnets for point-to-point links with no broadcast address and no network address — both addresses are usable as host addresses, since broadcast is unnecessary on a two-device link.