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Thursday, August 12, 2010

What is the difference between just an AP and a wireless router?

An AP is a radio transmitter/receiver that connects to your wired (ethernet) network. This is a way to add wireless to an existing home network. These devices connect to a router so information coming from your broadband connect can be distributed (or routed) to your Axim or other wireless devices via radio waves.

Routers typically include switches that will allow you to plug multiple devices into them with ethernet patch cables and also serve as a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server to assign IP numbers (an identifying number for your device) to the connected devices. A wireless router (i.e., a combination router/AP) is both apparatuses in a single unit. If you currently have a broadband connection to a single PC (Figure 3) but want to add connections for your Axim and other equipment, a combination router would be an easier way to do this (Figure 4) and would provide flexibility to expand your network easily, for example, to add another computer attached by an Ethernet cable and/or a laptop with WiFi (Figure 5). Use of a Wireless Router would also be an alternative to adding an AP to an existing network (Figure 2) if you simply want to reduce the number of apparatuses in your network.











Again, the same players have this type of equipment: Netgear MR814, Linksys BEFW11S4, Belkin F5D6231-4 , D-Link DI-614+, and SMC 2404WBR. As with other equipment discussed in this FAQ, there have been some individual problems with certain models, in particular, the SMC router has had range problems with several users.

The newest router equipment follows the 802.11g standard (discussed below. However, to date, PPCs with built-in wireless follow the "B" standard. In most cases, "G" equipment is compatible with "B," but if your main interest in WiFi is for use with your Pocket PC, you can save some money by getting "B" equipment.

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