About Broadband / ICS Routers

A router is a device that sends a packet data network. Router is connected to at least two networks, two hours of local networks or WANs or a Lan and his ISP network. Routers are located at gateways, the places where two or more networks connect, and the critical device that keeps data flowing between the network and the networks connected to the Internet. When data is sent between locations on a network or from a network in the second network data is always visible and intended to place a router. They made it by using headers and forwarding agents, table to determine the best route for sending data packets, and they use protocols such as ICMP to communicate with each other and configure the best way between any two hosts.

Internet is a global network that connects the millions of computers and smaller networks - so you can see how important the role of router is our means of communication and computing.

Why do I need a router?
For most home users, they may want to setup a Lan (Local Area Network) or WLAN (wireless Lan) and connect all computers to the Internet without paying a full service broadband subscriptions to their ISP for each computer on the network. In many cases, a supplier lets you use a router to connect multiple computers with Internet connection and pay a nominal fee for each additional computer sharing the connection. This is when home users will want smaller routers, often called broadband routers that enable two or more computers to share an Internet connection. Within the business or organization may need to connect multiple computers to the Internet, but also want to connect multiple private networks - and these are the types of functions a router is designed for .

Routers Home & Small Business
Not all routers are created equal since their job will differ slightly from the network to network. You can also look at a piece of hardware and not even realize this is a router. What defines a router is not its shape, color, size or manufacturer, but his job function of re-routing of data packets between computers. The cable modem that routes data between your computer and your Internet provider may be considered router. In its most common form, a router can only be one of two computers running Windows 98 (or higher) operating system, which links together through ICS (Internet connection sharing ). In this case, the computer is connected to the Internet will act as a router for the second computer to get his Internet connection.

Work a step of ICS, we have kind of hardware routers that are used to implement the same basic task as ICS, albeit with additional features and functions. Often called broadband Internet connection sharing routers, these routers allow you to share an Internet connection between multiple computers.

This image shows the flow of data across multiple computers sharing one high speed Internet connection. [Image Source]

Broadband routers or ICS will be completely different depending on the manufacturer or brand, but wired routers are generally a small box shaped hardware device with ports on the front or back turn any computer with a port with the your broadband modem. The connection ports allow the router to do its job of routing data packets between each of the computer and data and Internet.

Depending on the type of Internet connection and modem you can choose a router with phone or fax machine ports. Ethernet cable broadband router usually has built-in Ethernet switch to allow for expansion. The routers also support Nat (network address translation), allowing all your computers can share one Internet address. Internet connection sharing routers will also provide users with much needed features such as an SPI firewall or to serve as aa DHCP server.

Wireless broadband routers look almost like a cable router, with the clear exception of the antenna on top, and the lack of cable running from router to the computer when it is created. Create a wireless network adds a bit more security than wired networks, but wireless broadband routers have built-in additional levels of security. With features found in wired routers, wireless routers also provide features relevant to wireless security such as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and wireless MAC address filtering. Additionally, most wireless routers are configured for "invisible mode" so that your wireless network can not be scanned by outside wireless clients. Wireless routers will often include ports for Ethernet connections as well. For those familiar with WiFi and how it works, it is important to note that selecting wireless router may mean beef, which must be WI-FI knowledge-base. When the wireless network is established, it may ultimately spend more time monitoring and security to one with a local cable network.

Wired and wireless routers and network results and may claim against each other, but they are few equals in terms of overall function and efficiency. Both wired and wireless routers have a high efficiency and relatively good security (without adding product). But it bears repeating - as mentioned, you may need to invest time in learning more about wireless security. Usually wired is cheaper overall, but creating a wireless router and the computer is a bit more difficult than creating a wireless network. Of course, typically a cable system is very limited while wireless offers outstanding mobility features.