A wireless router is a device that performs the functions of a router and also includes the functions of a

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

. It is used to provide access to the

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

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, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a large ...

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

Features

Wireless routers typically feature one or more network interface controllers supporting Fast Ethernet or

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 ...

ports integrated into the main

system on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memor ...

(SoC) around which the router is built. An

Ethernet switch A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, 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 destination device. A ...

as described in IEEE 802.1Q 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, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, to provide redunda ...

through which two or more ports may be used together improving throughput and redundancy. All wireless routers feature one or more wireless network interface controllers. These are also integrated into the main SoC or may be separate chips on the

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...

. It also can be a distinct card connected over a

MiniPCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format t ...

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-standard family and many dual-band wireless routers have data transfer rates exceeding 300 Mbit/s (For 2.4 GHz band) and 450 Mbit/s (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 1.3 Gbit/s on the 5 GHz bands). Some wireless routers have one or two USB ports. These can be used to connect printer or desktop or mobile external hard disk drive to be used as a shared resource 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 cabl ...

, 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 di ...

modem, DOCSIS modem, LTE modem, or fiber optic modem integrated. The Wi-Fi clone button simplifies Wi-Fi configuration and builds a seamless unified home network, enabling Super Range Extension, which means it can automatically copy the SSID and Password of your router.

Operating system

The most common operating system on such embedded devices is

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

. Less frequently,

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

is used. The devices are configured over a web user interface served by a light web server software 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". This is software enabling a computer which hasn't been specifically made to be a router into a wireless access point. It is often used interchangeably with the term "virtual router" ...

. In 2003, Linksys was forced to open-source the

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide 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 netw ...

router series (the best-selling routers of all time) after people on the Linux kernel mailing list discovered that it used GPL 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,

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 is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

. 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 sv:Trådlös brygga

Features

Operating system

See also

References