IF you have wireless Internet access at home, you probably have a little box called a router that plugs into your telephone socket. This kind of router is a bit like a sophisticated modem: it’s a standalone computer whose job is to relay connections to and from the Internet.
At your office, you might use a router to connect several computers to the Internet at once (saving on the need for several separate modems). In other words, the router does two jobs: it creates a wireless computer network, linking all your computers together, and it also gives all your machines a shared gateway to the Internet.[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]
You can connect a router to all your different computers using ordinary network-connecting cables. This creates what’s called a LAN (local area network) linking the machines together.
A wireless router is simply a router that connects to your computer (or computers) using radio waves instead of cables.
It contains a very low-power radio transmitter and receiver, with a maximum range of about 90 meters or 300 ft, depending on what your walls are made of and what other electrical equipment is nearby.
The router can send and receive Internet data to any computer or devices in your home that is also equipped with wireless access (so each device on the wireless network has to have a radio transmitter and receiver in it too). the router becomes an informal access point for the Internet, creating an invisible “cloud” of wireless connectivity all around it, known as a hotspot.
Any computer inside this cloud can connect into the network, forming a wireless LAN. Just as computers connected to a wired LAN use Ethernet, machines on a wireless LAN use the wireless equivalent, which is called Wi-Fi.
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