A network technician is working to deploy a new subnet to support 500 hosts.

A /23 subnet mask has 23 bits set to 1 (255.255.254.0).

The formula to calculate the number of usable host addresses in a subnet is 2^(32 - subnet bits) - 2.

For a /23 subnet:

32 - 23 = 9 bits are available for host addresses.

2^9 - 2 = 510 usable host addresses.

References:

Professor Messer’s Network+ Study Guide

CompTIA Network+ N10-008 Study Guide