A wireless router or Wi-Fi router is a device that performs the functions of a router and also includes the functions of a

wireless access point In Computer networking device, computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP) (also just access point (AP)) is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network or wireless network. As a standalone ...

. It is used to provide access to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

or a private computer network. Depending on the manufacturer and model, it can function in a wired

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

, in a wireless-only LAN, or in a mixed wired and wireless network.

Features

Wireless routers typically feature one or more

network interface controller A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter and physical network interface) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Early network interface ...

s supporting

Fast Ethernet In computer networking, Fast Ethernet Ethernet physical layer, physical layers carry traffic at the nominal rate of . The Classic Ethernet, prior Ethernet speed was . Of the Fast Ethernet physical layers, 100BASE-TX is by far the most common. ...

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use in ...

ports integrated into the main

system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

(SoC) around which the router is built. An

Ethernet switch A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, Ethernet switch, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destinat ...

as described in

IEEE 802.1Q IEEE 802.1Q, often referred to as Dot1q, is the computer network, networking standard that supports virtual local area networking (VLANs) on an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet network. The standard defines a system of VLAN tagging for Ethernet frames and the ...

may interconnect multiple ports. Some routers implement

link aggregation In computer networking, link aggregation is the combining ( aggregating) of multiple network connections in parallel by any of several methods. Link aggregation increases total throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and prov ...

through which two or more ports may be used together improving throughput and redundancy. All wireless routers feature one or more

wireless network interface controller Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided med ...

s. These are also integrated into the main SoC or may be separate chips on the

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

. It also can be a distinct card connected over a

MiniPCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local bus, local computer Computer bus, bus for attaching Computer hardware, hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a S ...

or MiniPCIe interface. Some dual-band wireless routers operate the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands simultaneously. Wireless controllers support a part of the

IEEE 802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer com ...

-standard family and many dual-band wireless routers have data transfer rates exceeding (For 2.4 GHz band) and (For 5 GHz band). Some wireless routers provide multiple streams allowing multiples of data transfer rates (e.g. a three-stream wireless router allows transfers of up to on the 5 GHz bands). Some wireless routers have one or two

USB port The initial versions of the USB standard specified connectors that were easy to use and that would have high life spans; revisions of the standard added smaller connectors useful for compact portable devices. Higher-speed development of the USB ...

s. These can be used to connect printer or desktop or mobile external hard disk drive to be used as a

shared resource In computing, a shared resource, or network share, is a computer resource made available from one host to other hosts on a computer network. It is a device or piece of information on a computer that can be remotely accessed from another compu ...

on the network. A USB port may also be used for connecting

mobile broadband modem A mobile broadband modem, also known as wireless modem or cellular modem, is a type of modem that allows a personal computer or a router to receive wireless Internet access via a mobile broadband connection instead of using telephone or cable ...

, aside from connecting the wireless router to an Ethernet with xDSL or cable modem. A mobile broadband USB adapter can be connected to the router to share the mobile broadband Internet connection through the wireless network. Some wireless routers come with either

xDSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

modem,

DOCSIS Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable televisio ...

modem,

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

modem, or

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

modem integrated.

Operating system

The most common operating system on such embedded devices is

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

. Less frequently,

VxWorks VxWorks is a real-time operating system (or RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems, a subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, Deterministic system, ...

is used. The devices are configured over a web user interface served by a light

web server software Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by D ...

running on the device. It is possible for a computer running a desktop operating system with appropriate software to act as a wireless router. This is commonly referred to as a

SoftAP SoftAP is an abbreviated term for "software enabled access point". Such access points utilize software to enable a computer which hasn't been specifically made to be a router into a wireless access point. It is often used interchangeably with the t ...

. In 2003,

Linksys Linksys Holdings, Inc., is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor Tsao, Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United St ...

was forced to open-source the

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

of its

WRT54G The Linksys WRT54G Wi-Fi series is a series of Wi-Fi–capable residential gateways marketed by Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco, from 2003 until acquired by Belkin in 2013. A ''residential gateway'' connects a local area network (such as a home net ...

router series (the best-selling routers of all time) after people on the

Linux kernel mailing list The Linux kernel mailing list (LKML) is the main electronic mailing list for Linux kernel development, where the majority of the announcements, discussions, debates, and flame wars over the kernel take place. Many other mailing lists exist to d ...

discovered that it used

GPL The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first c ...

Linux code. In 2008, Cisco was sued in '' Free Software Foundation, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc.'' due to similar issues with Linksys routers. Since then, various open-source projects have built on this foundation, including

OpenWrt OpenWrt (from ''open wireless router'') is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux kernel, Linux, primarily used on Embedded system, embedded devices to Router (computing), route network traffic. The main components ...

DD-WRT DD-WRT is Linux-based firmware for wireless routers and access points. Originally designed for the Linksys WRT54G series, it now runs on a wide variety of models. DD-WRT is one of a handful of third-party firmware projects designed to replace ...

, and

Tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

. In 2016, various manufacturers changed their firmware to block custom installations after an FCC ruling. However, some companies plan to continue to officially support open-source firmware, including Linksys and Asus.

References

{{reflist Router Router

Wireless router A wireless router or Wi-Fi router is a device that performs the functions of a router and also includes the functions of a wireless access point. It is used to provide access to the Internet or a private computer network. Depending on the m ...

sv:Trådlös brygga

Features

Operating system

See also

References