Now no one will be surprised either by the presence of several computers at home, or by wireless network interfaces. In the order of things, the picture is perceived when in one apartment there is, for example, one stationary computer for games and storage of a home media collection, one laptop and several high-tech gadgets (tablets, e-books, smartphones, etc.). And, of course, a reasonable desire is the desire to make all this electronic economy work in a single intra-apartment network. In addition, linking all the equipment into one network allows you to use one external connection to the global network on all.
Of course, various solutions to this problem are possible, including the most exotic ones. For example, if you have a smartphone based on Android version no lower than 2.2, then you can connect all wireless devices in the apartment through it as through an access point, while also using a telephone connection as an external communication channel. But the phone as a WiFi access point will, in fact, be “tied” to the apartment, and if you decide to take a walk to the store, your friends will be left without an Internet connection. Moreover, the battery of such a smartphone will last a maximum of half a day.
In order to, on the one hand, unite all home gadgets and computers into a single whole, and on the other hand, to give them all access to the Internet, there is a whole class of devices - routers or routers. A router is a network device that allows you to connect two different networks (in particular, an intra-apartment "LAN" and the provider's network). Accordingly, if a router, in addition to a wired connection, can provide wireless, this is a WiFi router.
The choice of such devices is extremely rich - in almost every computer store you can find many WiFi routers at various prices (from 20 to several hundred dollars). They will differ in the range of supported standards, the speeds of wired and wireless networks, as well as the external channel, design, brand and more. But it's not about how to choose a WiFi router (the seller will help you with this), but about how to configure this device.
The configuration of the d link DIR ‑ 615 router will be considered as an example. This is a relatively inexpensive (about $ 35) device that has all the necessary functions for a home user. DLink products never belonged to premium brands, but were not synonymous with noname, i.e. it is a mid-sized company in its field, producing solid and inexpensive network devices.
Unpack the freshly bought WiFi router, connect the power. While the device is loading, we connect the provider's cable to the WAN port, and the cable from our desktop or laptop to any of the four LAN ports. If everything is normal with the cables, the corresponding LEDs on the front panel of the router should light up.
When everything is connected, enter the address 192.168.0.1 (in the address bar of the browser), in the window that appears, specify the username "admin" and enter the router’s Web interface.
First, configure the parameters of the external channel. We select the type of external connection (let it be a regular "LAN" with a static IP address, that is, a variant of Static IP). Next, in the appropriate fields, specify the connection parameters that the uncle-master gave us when laying the cable: our IP, gateway address, DNS servers. Saved.
The next number in our program will be LAN setup. To do this, go to the Network Settings menu section. Of the most important settings here is turning on / off the built-in DHCP server. Suppose we turn it on and give it a dozen addresses so that on every new device connected to our network, you do not have to manually enter the network connection parameters. That is, in the DHCP IP Address Range column, we specify the range 192.168.0.101-291.168.0.110. The remaining parameters are better without touching.
Well, next in line are the wireless settings. The WiFi router in question allows you to disable or enable the wireless network. Of course, we turn it on. After that, enter the name of our access point, select the communication mode (for those who do not know: the 802.11n standard is the fastest, and 802.11b is the slowest). And now the most important thing for any WiFi network is setting up encryption and password. WiFi router DIR-615 allows you to use the most advanced encryption algorithm in wireless networks - WPA2. If the devices that you plan to connect to the router are relatively new, select this type of encryption and specify the password that you will need to enter when connecting. Saved. That's all, you can take your favorite tablet, find your own network, enter the password, until you have forgotten it, and, lying comfortably on the couch, enjoy surfing the World Wide Web.