If you’re reading this post, congratulations! Your internet works – all thanks to a combination of technologies such as ADSL, modems, and routers.

If you’re looking at getting a new thing-that-powers-your-internet, then you’ve come to the right place. Warcom has an amazing selection of high-quality routers available, and all of them will get the job done (and no, I’m not just saying that). Here’s a quick breakdown on what sorts of technologies you’ll be diving into.

Today we’ll be taking a look at the most visible part of the equation – what you can see inside your own home, the combination ADSL modem/router. While it’s true that most ADSL modems are also routers, you can also get routers that aren’t modems, although they’re not as common. But what’s the difference?

ADSL modem: when you’re thinking of the mystery box-of-tricks that connects your computer to the internet, this is the part that does all the hard work, sending out those one’s and zero’s to strange places on the big bad internet. ADSL isn’t the only way you can connect to the internet, but unless you’re stuck with dial-up, it’s certainly the most prevalent. However, it doesn’t stop there – to connect more than one computer to the internet you’ll need some additional stuff to make that happen, which brings me to…

Router: basically, every computer on your network needs what’s called an IP address. You can either give your machine an IP address manually, or you can let a router do all the hard work, and assign IPs to machines for you. Routers also have the capacity to exchange information between computers, allowing you to share files and resources. Routers commonly come with more than one ethernet port, purely because you want a router to work with more than one computer at a time.

So once you’ve got that sorted, you’ve then got to make a decision on how many extras you’d like with that:

Wireless is probably something that you’ll want to look into, as wireless technology is pretty much everywhere these days, and if you ever want to connect an iPhone or an iPod Touch or similar Wi-Fi device to the internet, wireless will be the way to do it. I’d almost go so far as to say that wireless is pretty much a given by today’s standards, but there are those of you who like your tin foil hats…

Next on the list is VOIP. VOIP is for if you’d like to ditch your conventional phone line, and use Voice-Over-IP technology instead. Essentially you use your internet connection as a gateway to talk to other people, regardless if they’re on the same technology or not. VOIP is often seen as an excellent way to cut costs, as VOIP-to-VOIP calls are usually free (or very close to).

Those are probably the most common extras you’ll see, but there are also some pretty serious routers out there, like the DrayTek Vigor2820Vn, which do the following:

3G – the DrayTek mentioned above allows a USB-based 3G modem to be connected to the router, essentially allowing you to have a separate internet connection in case your main ADSL line goes down.

Firewall – all this is is a set of configurable rules that either allow (or deny) certain connections to computers on your local network. How configurable these options are (from straight allow/deny to the serious allow by certain times of day) depends on how powerful the router is.

QoS – quality of service allows you to prioritise certain activities over others, so that available bandwidth isn’t all being taken up by one person (or activity) in your house (so YouTube has a lower priority than your brother’s gaming on his PS3/Xbox, for example).

VPN – virtual private networks allow you to create a virtual network via software for the purposes of wider-networks with security and, as it’s name suggests, privacy. Think of it as having a local network (people can’t see in, but you can communicate between computers easily), over the internet (allowing you to access a work computer from home, for example).

Without getting into any more specific than that, there you have it – a reasonable overview of what powers the wires between your computer and the internet.

Without further ado, cue the recommendations…

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