Many of you already have a router for your home or office network. And some of you use your router for wireless connectivity with the Internet, and of course many of you do both. Routers can be a mystery to many people so I’ve tried to bring down the cobwebs of this device so it can be seen more clearly.
Before routers entered the home arena, they primarily were the backbone of network interconnectivity throughout the Internet. In order for a message to get sent from one location, perhaps on the east coast, to another location 3000 miles away on the west coast, that message would have to travel through several routers. Routers are the interface between networks. It is the traffic cop that “knows” which is the best network to route that message to as our message continues its 3000 mile trek toward its destination. And this process continues until the message finds its destination. Using that technology has been very beneficial for the home user, whether the need is for a personal home network or an office network, at a cost that most people can afford.
Perhaps one of the best investments you can make is purchasing a router, sometimes they’re also called a WAP (wireless access point). For around $80 you can buy a decent router and it will definitely add capabilities to your PC and smartphone that you did not possess before. The latest wireless standard is 802.11ac, which is about three times faster than the previous standard, 802.11n. 802.11ac is backwards compatible, meaning it can be used for older PCs that do not have the 802.11ac yet. If you need to purchase a router, you can buy the 802.11ac one, but it will cost more money. You actually would do fine getting a 802.11n version since benefiting from this speed increase will only occur if your PC also has a network card at the 802.11ac standard. More new PCs have it, but only a small number of PCs industry-wide actually have it installed.
Routers are multi-functional. They can be used for:
- Home/office network
- Wireless connectivity for your home/office PC
- Wireless connectivity for your smartphone
As far as which companies make the best routers, that is really a judgement call, but some of the more popular routers are made Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, and Belkin.
Home/Office Network
One of the big advantages of having a router is being able to connect multiple PCs together, whether they are desktops or laptops. And if one of your PCs is a laptop, you can have it wirelessly connected to the Internet and surf the Web from anywhere in your home or office. Routers add a strong convenience factor and flexibility to your computing environment. You can have your home or office network wired together with Cat-5 cabling and/or you can set it up for wireless connectivity. This is great for sharing files between the PCs on your network or if you have a printer, you can have each PC share that networked printer.
To wire your network, you’ll need a few Cat-5 cables that you should be able to purchase where you purchased the router. Plug one end of a Cat-5 cable to your cable modem and the other end of that cable into the router jack labled, “Internet”, located on the back of the router. The various PCs you will have on the network plug into one of the Ethernet jacks labled on the back of the router as well. When you first configure the router, you’ll plug it into one of these Ethernet jacks. Each router has an interface program which has all of the options/choices for operation, and many also have a quick start guide which will allow you to leave several of the options at their preset default values, so you’ll really only need to select a few choices to get it up and running in just a few minutes.
Wireless PC Connectivity
Let’s look at it first in terms of using it for wireless usage. Many of you know that you can use a public wireless (WiFi) hot spot (Starbuck’s or any Internet Café) to connect your laptop to the Internet. If you desire to connect to the Internet using wireless connectivity while you’re at home, purchasing a router is the way to go. Once you have your router set up for wireless operation, it is simply a matter of selecting your router amongst the list of routers you will see listed, and connecting to it.
Wireless Smartphone Connectivity
Not only can you use it for a wireless connection to the Internet for your PC, you can also use it as a wireless connection for your smartphone. Many people like this feature if they live in an area where there isn’t any cell phone tower coverage. On your phone you simply go into the settings menu and configure the phone for wireless operation. On a voice call, the wireless part of the call if from your phone to your router. Since the router is wired to your cable modem, the voice call continues from the router to the cable modem and out through your cable line onto the Internet. It’s simple to do and just about all phones now have wireless capability. Most phones with wireless capability will also keep track of how many wireless minutes you have used as well. And if you’re consuming a lot of voice minutes through your cell phone carrier’s cellular network, by using the router to go wireless, you just might lower enough of your voice call minutes to drop down to a lower priced carrier plan, thus saving you money.
Avoid Router hijacking-Use Password Protection
You could be a victim of neighborhood bandwidth hijacking. It is quite common for nearby users in one’s neighborhood to tap into your router’s signal and connect to the Internet using your router’s bandwidth. Other people using your router not only causes your wireless performance to suffer, you are in essence giving them free Internet access. The way to combat this is to put password protection on your router. You can set up the password protection by going into the router settings as well as choosing the best type of encryption method.
Wireless Encryption
Data encryption discussed here is for the wireless portion of the data path. Once the data enters a wired path, the data is decrypted before traveling further. There are two methods for encrypting your data; WPA and WEP. WPA is a much stronger encryption method and thus much more secure. You would be better off selecting WPA as your encryption choice since the encryption key is changing regularly versus WEP, where the encryption key never changes, and is much easier to hack.
Improve your performance by experimenting
Play around with the router’s external antenna, if it has one. Move the antenna to various angles (45 degrees, 90 degrees, etc)and observe what it does to your performance. Some performance improvements as high as 20 percent are possible by these adjustments.
Relocate your router to various locations in the house, if possible. If you have more than one location for the cable outlet, that will make it easy. You can also get a splitter and split the cable into a Y configuration and run additional cabling to various locations throughout the house. If you have several PCs throughout the house, try to visualize a location that is central to all of them and establish that is the router location. That is much better than having all of your PCs on one floor and having the router down in the basement. Distance and obstructions can affect the signal.
Get Firmware Upgrades for Better Performance
If you purchased your own router for your Internet usage, check the router manufacturer web site for firmware updates since these updates often results in performance improvements. Check if one is available for your model by locating the model# printed on the underside of the unit. Enter the model# and see if there are any upgrades to the firmware. If there are, download and install the upgrade and you will more than likely experience some performance improvement. If your cable (high-speed broadband) provider is also providing a router for your usage, contact them and see if a firmware upgrade is available. Sometimes, rather than issue a firmware upgrade, your cable provider may simply swap your unit with a newer version, which often results in a performance increase.
Buying a router is one of the best investments you’ll make for your home computing environment. Compared to the various advantages, the cost is minimal and once it’s set up and running, you’ll be very glad you did. If you’ll be using it with several PCs and various users, purchase the most expensive router you can since the more expensive ones usually handle the additional bandwidth drain better than low-end routers. If you have an older PC that does not have a wireless network adapter card, you can usually find them at the same stores that sell routers. Many of the newer ones are very small and easy to install: just plug it into a USB slot on your PC. Once you begin experiencing wireless operation and the flexibility of using your laptop in any location of your household, you’ll wonder how you did without it for all these years!
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