In a small office network, which feature must the company router have enabled for devices to access the internet with dynamically assigned private IP addresses?

For devices in a small office network to access the internet with dynamically assigned private IP addresses, Network Address Translation (NAT) is essential. NAT allows multiple devices on a local network (which use private IP addresses) to share a single public IP address when accessing the internet. This is necessary because private IP addresses are not routable on the internet.

When NAT is configured on the company router, it translates the private IP addresses of the devices to the public IP address assigned to the router, enabling those devices to communicate over the internet while maintaining their individual private addresses within the local network. This capability is crucial for ensuring that the devices can send and receive data from the internet without requiring each device to have its own public IP address, which can be costly and impractical for small networks.

While other features like routing protocols, DHCP, and VLANs play important roles in a network, they do not directly facilitate the translation of private IP addresses to a public IP for internet access. Routing protocols are used for determining the best path for data to travel across networks, DHCP is used for dynamically assigning IP addresses within a local network, and VLANs are used for segmenting networks. None of these features alone would allow devices with private IPs to access the