2026 Network Routing, Switching, and Wireless Protocols Complete Practice Test

When a packet’s destination doesn’t match any specific route, the routing decision falls back to a default route that acts as a catch-all. The router performs a longest-prefix-match lookup; if no more-specific entry applies, it uses the default route, which designates the next-hop gateway (the default gateway) to forward the packet toward destinations outside the known subnets.

So, with a default route in place, the packet is forwarded to the specified next hop rather than being dropped, broadcast, or encrypted by default. For example, if there’s a default route 0.0.0.0/0 with a next-hop of 203.0.113.1, a packet destined for 8.8.8.8 will be sent to 203.0.113.1 to continue toward its destination.