How to connect a router

Level of difficulty: Easy

Routers are an extremely important part of any network connection, be it domestic or meant strictly for commercial purposes. The routers facilitate sending and decoding of data in bundles, called data packets, to their individual destinations depending on their web addresses. Routers are placed as relay devices, i.e. one router chooses the best possible recipient of the data packets from its neighboring routers, and the data is transferred. This leads to the establishment of a network connection.

Materials Needed:
- Computer Hardware
Step 1
For all its intricacies involved, routers are fairly simple devices to use and configure. Its essentiality while setting up any proper network connection means that every domestic user should posses at least the rudimentary knowledge regarding routers. To initialize the process of router configuration, one must have a network router (wireless or wired). The network adapters installed on relevant devices must be connected to the router. While configuring the router system, at least one computer within the proposed network should definitely have a web browser installed.
Step 2
For installation to begin, one must connect at least one computer from within the system to the router. During this, the network cable offers the best signal fidelity and accuracy, and hence people working with wireless routers also advised to follow this step. On the computer connected to the router, a browser window needs to be opened. In it, one must enter the router’s address for network administration in the web address bar. On hitting ENTER, the browser would automatically direct towards the routers home page. For this step, an activated internet connection within that computer is not necessary. Now we need to log in to the router from its home page. The router documentation is supposed to provide individual usernames and passkeys/passwords, and so just keying them in would suffice.
Step 3
For the router to connect to the net, one must enter the ‘Internet connection information’ within the relevant section in the router configuration menu. If the service provider has already issued a static IP address, the static parameters, including the network mask and gateway values are also to be set within the router. Next, it is imperative that network connection status between the computer and the router is verified. Checking for the reception of IP address by the computer from the router helps to determine the health of the connection. Once the router is set and configured, it is very easy to add more computers within the system or to configure extra security measures within the system.