Network Routers And Switches: A Helpful Look At How They Work
The internet is becoming a more important part of our lives, and network routers and switches play an incredibly important part of that. Most people, unless they work in the internet industry, never see the incredibly large industrial routers that make the internet work. However, most people have at least a home router within their house or apartment that allows them to browse the net wirelessly or connect more than one computer at once to the broadband connection.
If you are a home user and wish to connect more than one computer to your internet connection, you will need some form of router. They work by performing what is called NAT (or network address translation) – this simply means that each individual computer can communicate with the outside world and it is down to the router to correctly send traffic to the machine it is intended for. This also means that they are also useful for connecting smart phones and other devices such as a games console to the internet.
How much you you are willing to spend will usually influence the amount, and quality, of additional features available. The higher end routers often incorporate advance QOS (which stands for quality of service) features. QOS allows the router to prioritize packets of data dependent on their application.
This means that, for example, if you use Skype or another VoIP service a lot or you play a lot of online games, you can choose to have those packets prioritized over any other type of traffic, such as downloading or bit torrent.
One of the main problems with wireless routers is when they are being used in a highly populated area. As there is only a certain amount of wireless bandwidth available, when more than one person is using a wireless router in a similar area, they can interfere with each other and cause slow speeds and dropped connections. There is a simple way to at least somewhat alleviate these problems: go to the configuration page or setup utility and change the channel a few times (you may need to experiment) so you experience an improved level of service.
Although it is only recently that network routers and switches have become used more often in people’s homes, their usefulness means that now a lot of people could not do without them.
Learn more about the necessity for Network Routers and Switches now in our complete overview of everything you need to know about how and where to get affordable Cisco Routers and Juniper Switches .