Wireless Broadband Router

There are various technologies of wireless broadband router which can be seen as a progression of the technology or the family of wireless broadband routers. The first two in the group were 802.11 b and then 802.11 g, which use the now very busy (read 'overcrowded') 2.4 GHz traffic band.

Wireless Broadband Router

The latest addition to the family is the 802.11 g, which can use 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. Read the relavent pages on this site for more information on the wireless broadband router.

A wireless broadband router is a form of residential gateway. A residential gateway allows a home user to connect several computers to the Internet. For example, you plug the line from your Internet Service Provider into the residential gateway and then you plug your home computers into the gateway as well.

This provides you with a group of interconnected computers, also called a LAN (Local Area Network) which are connected to the Internet by a single wire.

If you use a wireless broadband router you can connect your computers together and to the Internet without wires. This makes for a cleaner appearance and more freedom of movement.

Most earlier wireless broadband routers transmit for a distance of up to fifty metres whereas the more recent ones will transmit for a hundred metres.

Originally, the term 'residential gateway' was invented to distinguish cheaper, less advanced models from the high-end routers. These days, however, even cheap 'residential gateways' have many of the capabilities of previously high-end professional routers.

A good example of these modern residential gateways is the wireless broadband router, which is a common sight in homes, offices and hotels these days.

A home wireless broadband router tends to have plenty of interfaces, powerful functions and a powerful, user-friendly interface. A wireless broadband router is a manageable terminal usually with auto-configuration of the carrier network, remote control and detection.

Most wireless broadband routers provide additional services as well. Services such as IP address routing; network address translation (NAT); DHCP functions; firewall functions and LAN connectivity.

Routers are generally self-contained devices which rely on hard-wired internally stored software or firmware to operate them. They can usually run with any operating system as they are so-called 'OS Independent'.

A wireless broadband router performs all the functions of a normal router, but connects to the computers without the use of wires. A wireless broadband router uses 802.11 technology to transmit and receive data. The first wireless broadband routers were 802.11 b technology. Then came 802.11 g and now 802.11 n.

These technologies are backwardly compatible. 802.11 b and g work on the 2.4 GHz frequency, which means that the frequency can be very clogged in busy cities.

They work at 54 MHz, so are quite slow compared with a plug-in connection. 802.11 n, however, is dual band, which means that it can work on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies It also works at 300 MHz.

This gives a modern wireless broadband router a huge increase in potential connectivity depending on the facilities that are in use in your area.