Wireless routers, eh? Tricky things. They promise so much, and yet seem to be one of the most complicated and annoying parts of using a computer, when really connecting to the internet should be so simple.
Lets say you’ve just been down to PC World or BestBuy and bought yourself a new laptop - it’s wireless, great! Now you can get rid of all those ugly wires draped around your home and connect wirelessly to the internet - welcome to the future! But you need a wireless router.
Please don’t just wander into your local store and take the “expert” advice of the 17-year old sales assistant. A little research in advance will pay you dividends, and at the very least will save you from being one of the bewildered souls in the store staring at a wall of boxes wondering what on earth a Gigabit cable router with MIMO access is. Read on for the three key things you need to know.
Firstly - check if you can get a free router. Many Internet Service Providers (ISP) will now provide a free wireless router for their customers, so it’s worth a quick phone call to your ISP to see if you can get one. It may not be the greatest router ever, but it’s free, and free beats any price.
Router Types
Assuming you don’t qualify for a free router, you’ll need to buy one. The first thing to know is that routers breakdown into 2 main categories. Different manufacturers call them different things, and there is some blurring of the lines. [...]
