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I understand that subnetting is necessary to make more IPs available when there are a lot of hosts on a network. Supernetting is just the opposite, right? So it would make less addresses available for hosts, right? Why would you even want to do that?

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Really? please don't ask homework questions like this here. – Chopper3 May 19 '11 at 13:12
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Supernetting was necessary because of the screwed up way the Classes worked. Fortunately they were eliminated 17 years ago; so neither the Classes nor Supernetting should ever be mentioned outside a history class. – Chris S♦ May 19 '11 at 13:25
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closed as off topic by Chopper3 May 19 '11 at 13:12

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Subnetting historically worked on byte boundaries, so you could split on a class A (255.0.0.0), B (255.255.0.0) or C (255.255.255.0) network boundary.

Supernetting uses CIDR (Classless Interdomain Routing).

"Supernetting in itself does not give you more TCP/IP addresses; however, it provides larger single networks for use."

Have a look at the following link

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