{"id":5,"date":"2014-04-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielepais.com\/journal\/2014\/04\/16\/what-is-a-router-anyway\/"},"modified":"2022-02-03T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T07:21:19","slug":"what-is-a-router-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielepais.com\/journal\/what-is-a-router-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a router anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"What<\/h1>\n

Sir, my internet box is bad..!<\/h1>\n

“<\/em>Here is a typical distress call. A customer tells you: “My internet is slow, I have called my provider and they say is all fine, I think is the internet box”.<\/em><\/h3>\n

Before trying to investigate who’s fault is it, let’s first determine what is that, “internet box”, and what it does.
\nThe internet box, as some people call it is an actual “router”.<\/p>\n

As the name implies, a router is the device that routes the requests for web content from your LAN, (local area network<\/a>), such as all your computers, mobiles, tablets and any other device at home that can connect to the internet with the WAN, (wide area network), external internet services or the web itself.<\/p>\n

Let’s see an example together:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your PC<\/a> is either connected to the router via a network cable, (commonly RJ45), or via wireless.<\/p>\n

If you type a web site URL in your browser, such as google.com and click enter, your PC will send a request for that external URL, (IP Address), trough your router.<\/p>\n

The request will travel internally from your home computer to the router then externally to many other routers until it will reach the destination Chosen.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the line, another router attached to a Computer that serves the web pages, (called server<\/a>), will read your request and if found will send the page you have requested, again this information will travel from one router and geo-location to many others until when it will reach your LAN and your router.<\/p>\n

The job of your router will be to direct that web page to the device who asked for it, so in this case to your PC.<\/p>\n

The routing Happens in this way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In your house, every device capable to go online, whether wired to the router or wireless have an IP address assigned by the router.<\/p>\n

This can be of this sort: 192.168.0.1\/2\/3 up to 255.<\/p>\n

So every time you connect a new device the router will assign an internal IP so that he knows who is he talking to and if there is a request for that IP he will send the information only to that IP and not to all the devices on the network.<\/p>\n

Your router has also an external IP that allows other routers aside from your network to communicate with him. In other words, when you asked for a web page, your router has forwarded the request to another router on the web.<\/p>\n

The other router on the web doesn’t know your PC internal IP but sends the requested page to your router because this is the only information he has and he cannot see you directly. It will be the job of your router to redirect that web page to your PC and not to your tablet, mobile, laptop and so on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right, we now have a brief understanding of what a router does. Let’s see then what could be the cause of a slow internet aside for troubles and disruption of services that originate from your internet service provider.<\/p>\n

All routers available on the market today use at least the N protocol for their communications with wireless adaptors built in on devices. Older protocols such as the A and the G could be still in use in some homes but they are rare as N has been around quite sometime so unless your router is 8\/10 years old you almost certainly have an N router or higher, (AC).<\/p>\n

Let’s categorise the N routers in low, medium and high bandwidth:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Low bandwidth will include the N150, (150mbs), medium the N300\/N450, (300\/450mbs), and High bandwidth will include anything from N600 (600mbps), onwards.<\/p>\n

Please bear in mind that the majority of ISP will provide you with a free<\/a> router, however, most probably this will fall on the lower end so one thing to investigate when speed and bandwidth are affected is also the quality of the router.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

low end routers such as the N150 will have only one stream so not only the speed will be lower but also the coverage will be affected. N300 will have two streams N450 three. Obviously more streams also mean more bandwidth and faster download\/uploads.<\/p>\n

The majority of the router in circulation are single band, (2.4ghz). This is the same frequency used by most of the wireless devices that we commonly use today, (wireless keyboard\/mouse, cordless phones, etc), also microwave ovens will potentially interfere and disrupt a good signal.<\/p>\n

Almost all high end routers from N600 onwards are dual band, they can operate on the 2.4ghz as well as in the 5ghz.
\nImagine the 2.4ghz as a crowded freeway with loads of cars, congestion and low speed while the 5ghz is the fast lane with very few cars and the possibility of speed to “the limits”.<\/p>\n

High end routers have also more streams as they can combine the 2 bands. Please remember that also all your home devices have to support dual band to benefit of the great features of this routers.<\/p>\n

The coverage is another very important aspect of wireless communications. Not all the house have walls made of partitions that can be easily penetrate from the wireless signal of your router, for instance old houses will probably have old, thick brick walls that are far more difficult for a wireless signal to penetrate and spread around.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Large houses and buildings with more rooms to cover should have repeaters or range extenders in order to amplify the wireless signal and broaden the coverage, however, not always this is the best choice as this devices do not really boost a signal but rather spread it at best. Range extenders should stand in between the area covered from your router and the blind spot. Remember that a range extender still relies on a wireless connection, so it is also prone from ups and downs according from the performance of your wireless router.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the best solution to cover blind spots in the house is offered from today’s technology in the form of Network plugs or “Power Lines”.<\/p>\n

These are a set of plugs, one connects to your router and the mains and pushes the Ethernet signal to the existing electrical wiring of your house in order to network all of your rooms.<\/p>\n

The network over the mains plugs also offer wi-fi hot spot at the receiving end.
\nThe signal is undoubtedly stronger then the Range extenders plugs as they are connected to your router via the mains wires.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last thing you might want to consider when dealing with internet bandwidth and speed is the use you are doing with it. Imagine all the devices that you have in your house and check who is using the internet and how much use per device.<\/p>\n

If you don’t want to mess around with command line and other arcane ways to monitor your network traffic or you don’t see enough information on your Control Panel \/ Task Manager Tools, there is software available online both free and commercial that you can install to you PC or MAC and analyse what is coming in and out of your router.<\/p>\n

Additionally also keep a note of what everyone in the house is doing on the web. Is anybody streaming a movie in Netflix?, Uploading a full PC backup on Dropbox? Streaming music from Pandora?<\/p>\n

Finally the last suggestion I would like to give is to check the settings of your router.
\nAlthough small in size, your router is like a mini computer with motherboard, RAM and a memory ROM. You can access its setting by typing on your web browserhttp:\/\/192.168.0.1\/\u00a0or else check the user manual, (if you still have it), or even check the bottom of the router, there should be a sticker with all the details.<\/p>\n

Once you get to the setting page you will be required to login with the Administrator credentials and from there you can change the setting in accordance of the use you do. Some modern routers have services of QOS, (Quality of Services), they will allow you to select priorities among the services you are running, (e.g. you could allow more bandwidth to an IP Camera that is regularly monitoring your apartment and slow down uploads to the cloud).<\/p>\n

In any way, I hope this has been informative and I would like to thank you for reading.<\/p>\n

Your feedback is very welcome too..!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the name implies, a router is the device that routes the requests for web content from your LAN, (local area network), such as all your computers, mobiles, tablets and any other device at home that can connect to the internet with the WAN, (wide area network), external internet services or the web itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[9,10,11,18,17,14,16,15,12,13],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t