What is a Router?

Ten years ago routers were almost unheard of in the home. With the explosion of broadband, or high-speed, Internet usage in the past 10 years, it appears everyone has at least one router of their home. For many, however, such a router does continues to be a mystery.

If you have high-speed Internet, chances are you've no less than one router, whether or not it is just a wired router or even a wireless router. The router manages several important tasks regarding networking in your house.

The first task is that it allows you to connect multiple computers to your single Internet connection. On the back of your router there are lots of ports, with the variety of ports with regards to the model you use. There is also an uplink port that connects to your cable or high-speed modem. The remaining ports connect to your computer.

When you connect your cable modem for a router, your router now becomes an access point to the Internet. The IP address that is assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is assigned in your router. In turn, as soon as you connect a minumum of one computer towards the router, each computer can receive a unique local address assigned from the router. This address isn't just like the main one assigned through your ISP.

When you hook up to the Internet, your request is shipped in your router utilizing your local IP address. The router will mail out that request towards the Internet with all the IP address assigned from your ISP.

Once the request has become completed and data is distributed back to your computer, it is shipped back for the IP address of the ISP, which suggests the info is distributed back to your router. Once the router receives the data, it then determines which local address requested the data and then sends it on the computer used on that address.

Basically, in a nutshell, a router basically "routes" information in one computer to a different. Since a router can connect multiple computers in the local network, as well as connect to the Internet, you can have several computers share one Internet connection.

If you've an invisible router, then you can certainly connect computers to it using one of several wireless standards that exist. Ensure that once you do use a radio connection, however, that you simply secure the text. There are many resources available on the internet that explain the way to make this happen.

Besides helping you to connect multiple computers for the Internet, a router also can perform another critical task - security. Many, if not completely routers, sold today also include a hardware firewall. Much like the software firewalls you install today, the router's hardware firewall can help protect all computers that are connected into it from harmful data on the Internet. While the hardware firewall included in your router provides great protection, it can be always vital that you also purchase a software firewall, an anti-virus application, and anti-malware applications on your personal machine for complete protection.

If you utilize high-speed to connect to the Internet, then chances are you are connected by way of a router. It enables you to share one Internet connection among many computers along with acts carries a hardware firewall to keep those computer safe.