What is NAT?

Question

I no it has to do with routers. If your Nat is open what does that mean. Why do people want to open there NAT? I play xbox live and i want to no. can someone please help me.

Answer 1

"In computer networking, Network Address Translation (NAT, also known as Network Masquerading, Native Address Translation or IP Masquerading) is a technique of transceiving network traffic through a router that involves re-writing the source and/or destination IP addresses and usually also the TCP/UDP port numbers of IP packets as they pass through. Checksums (both IP and TCP/UDP) must also be rewritten to take account of the changes. Most systems using NAT do so in order to enable multiple hosts on a private network to access the Internet using a single public IP address (see gateway). Many network administrators find NAT a convenient technique and use it widely. Nonetheless, NAT can introduce complications in communication between hosts and may have a performance impact"

The rest of the answer is in the link.