Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 16.7. Front (left) and rear (right) views of a typical Wireless N router with a built-in
four-port gigabit switch.
When you use a router to share your Internet connection, you connect the modem to the WAN port on
the router. All computers on the network then either connect to wired LAN ports or via the router's
wireless access point and can share files and printers with each other as well as share Internet
access.
The router provides IP addresses to all of the computers or other devices connected and appears as a
single connection to the ISP's modem. This prevents the ISP from determining that you're sharing the
connection and serves to act as a firewall to protect computers on the network from being directly
visible on the internet. The WAN (Internet) port on the router can be configured to obtain an IP
address from the cable modem or DSL modem or to have a fixed IP address, depending on the
configuration the ISP requires.
As long as the router is running and properly connected to the cable modem or DSL modem, any
computer connected to it can go online just by having its email client or web browser opened.
Figure 16.8
shows a typical Ethernet home network configuration that uses a wireless router to share
an Internet connection as well as to interconnect several devices via both wired and wireless
connections.
