Everyone needs internet to stay connected, but most people rely on technicians and their more tech-savvy friends and family to set things up. While there’s no shame in that, having a basic understanding of how your Wi-Fi works at home is still beneficial.
A good start is learning the difference between your modem and router. From there, you’ll have a much easier time fixing problems as they arise, and you’ll have a better sense of when and how to best upgrade your network too. What’s more, plenty of internet service providers will let you skip an equipment rental fee if you use your own modem or router, so buying your own hardware could save you money over the long run too.
Let’s get right into it, starting with the likely starting point for your home’s internet connection:
What is a modem?
The internet is also known as the World Wide Web because that’s basically what it is — a massive web of computers and servers that can pass information back and forth in mere milliseconds. Smartphones and other cellular devices can connect to that web with a wireless connection to the nearest cell tower, but noncellular devices like smart home gadgets, gaming consoles and your computer need another way to access the web and get online.
This Arris Surfboard is a good example of a modem. Its job is to encode your internet traffic and send it to the web, then decode the signals you receive in response.
That’s where your home’s modem comes in. Short for modulator-demodulator, your modem’s job is to act as the translator for your home network. It takes whatever data you want to send out into the internet — a Google search, a request to refresh your Instagram feed, an email, you name it — and modulates that data into an encoded electronic signal that can travel through the web. When that signal reaches its destination, the receiving modem will demodulate, decode it into readable data and then send a response.
Here’s a practical example: When you’re at home shopping on Amazon and you click “Add to cart,” your modem sends that request to Amazon’s servers. Then, Amazon responds by sending the confirmation that your bulk order of red gummy bears is, indeed, in your cart. All of that happens within a fraction of a second, and you see it play out on your screen because your modem is connecting you with Amazon through the web. Thanks, modem!
In the early days of the internet, most people used a modem to get online. You’d plug your modem into your home phone line for a dial-up connection with your internet service provider, and then you’d wire the modem to your computer via Ethernet to connect that computer to the web. Wired connections to the modem like that are great for a connection that’s as fast and reliable as your ISP allows, but they aren’t practical if you want to be able to connect from anywhere in your house, or if you want to use things like wireless smart home gadgets. For that, you’ll need a way for those devices to connect to your modem without wires at all.
Gee, if only there was a device for that, some way to “route” all of those wireless signals to the right place…
This T-Mobile Home Internet gateway acts as both a modem and a wireless router.
What is a gateway?
A wireless home network needs a connection to the web (the modem) and wireless access to that connection for your devices (the router). That doesn’t mean that you need two separate devices, though. Shop around, and you’ll see all-in-one devices that combine the two into a single piece of hardware, often called a gateway. They’re simply modems with their own, built-in routers.
Many internet providers, including AT&T, Xfinity and Optimum, rent out devices like this when setting up your connection. Gateways are also common with cellular internet plans, like T-Mobile Home Internet, where your incoming internet signal arrives over the air instead of by ground-laid wire like with fiber, cable or DSL. You need a special radio to accept cellular signals like those, so the provider will often provide an all-in-one gateway with that radio built right in.
In most cases, you can turn off the gateway’s wireless network — the router part — and use your own router if you so choose. Just connect that router to the gateway with an Ethernet cable, just like you would with a regular modem. Be sure to turn that gateway’s wireless network off in the device settings — otherwise, you’ll have two networks in your home that could interfere with each other or cause confusion.
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