Question Wifi router question

[iikii]

Hi, I have a basic wifi router question.

If my internet at home is used by multiple people and devices, it means I already have a wifi router?

thanks

 

[kanewolf]

Hi, I have a basic wifi router question.

If my internet at home is used by multiple people and devices, it means I already have a wifi router?

thanks

Most likely. Those could all be wired devices, and you could have a wired only router, but that is very uncommon.

 

[Paperdoc]

When you have internet available in your home supplied by some cable, where that cable first enters your home there will be a box which is the interface between the cable system and your home network. Normally nobody connects only one computer directly to that box via a single cable, so MOST internet service providers also supply and install a small wired router with a few output sockets so you can connect several users to it by cables. That is the basis of a WIRED home network.

To connect to that signal source without using a cable you need another system called WiFi that uses radio wave signals to connect between a central base unit and the several wireless users. This unit is a "converter" interface between the cabled system and the radio wave system. Such a unit is SO VERY common now that almost all routers actually include the WiFi system in the same box. So that Router box (maybe the one supplied by your internet company and right by the first box) ALSO is the WiFi interface unit. Look at it. If it has a couple of little straight rods sticking up from the back, those are antennas for WiFi.

If anyone in your house accesses the internet using a computer or other device WITHOUT plugging a cable into that device, then you DO have WiFi working in your home.