"== Changes to intro ==
I changed the intro making it very simple and clear.  
Wow! I suppose that I was totally wrong about that one!  

A comparable analogy to an IP address is a telephone number. On a telephone network, the phone numbers must be unique. Generally speaking, each location has one phone number that allows anyone to dial that phone directly by using their unique phone number. Likewise, a computer is assigned a unique IP address which let's any other computer to connect directly to it by using their unique IP address. In reality, it is possible for a location to have multiple phone numbers (perhaps primarily larger businesses) and a computer can also be assigned multiple IP addresses which is pretty cool.

V.S.

A computer’s IP address is very much like a telephone number; they are both unique and allow communications with local or remote network devices. Much like a multi-line telephone, a network device may have multiple IP addresses assigned to it.

Consider that a telephone number is ""persistent"" rather than ""transient"", and the telephone number, in conventional telephony, to a physical pair of wires. The pair of wires may change due to repair or moves to a new location, but the telephone number stays the same. 

A DNS name is persistent while an IP address, if dynamically assigned, can be transient. The closer analogy to telephone number is DNS name, not IP address. The IP address, in turn, may map, on a LAN, to a MAC address.  

I think the latter is better suited but what do I know, anyhow?
 

""local or remote network devices"" makes no sense for telephones.  Shorter is not clearer.  

Local and long distance call makes no sense? What about LAN vs. WAN connection?  

Local and long distance calls are an artificial dichotomy created by phone companies so they can charge for larger network usage.  LAN, MAN, CAN, WAN, etc. are also an artificial categorization also for administrative purposes.

Telephone calls between countries, between (North American) area codes, between exchanges, and between lines in the same exchange are quite different in terms of the hierarchical switching model in use. In like manner, the concepts of IP address aggreggation/supernetting versus subnetting are quite distinct.  

Local or remote phone numbers do not make sense and neither does local or remote network devices in IP addresses.  The closest is the localhost but that's entirely different.

Like I said, your shorter version is much less clear because you're using incorrect terminology.  

Dear Cburnett: I made new and improved changes... Thanks  

First: a street address is too complicated.  Second: a phone number is too complicated.  Third: a book index is too complicated.  What's next?  My opinion of this is that you really want to dumb down this analogy.  Each step you change the example to make it simpler but at the same time to the point of using incorrect terminology.  This is getting really tiring.

Explaining a technical concept does not require using grunts, chest beatings, and wall paintings.  

Cburnett: I really liked your last edit; the concept that is, and I made some minor changes that I feel will enable the reader to better understand the basic concept of an IP address via minor syntax changes.  

Great, but why do you keep deleting the colloquial usage?  
 I removed it because it was not significant; why explain ""what an IP address is not"" in so many words? Although I do agree with your accurate statement about ""IP"" being incorrectly used as an abbreviation for ""IP address"", it is merely not applicable as an introductory item - this is why I clinically deleted it.  

Cburnett: I removed the ""colloquial usage"" line.  

I see that you might compare ""extensions"" of telephone numbers with the local resolving of shared IP address in a shared hosting environment. but I have