B.L.U.F.
All about networking. That “and anything else we can think of.”
(??? words)

I was asked to recommend a “Wi-Fi Router”. Unfortunately, that is not a simple question because it has implied assumptions that further complicate it.

So we start with the two primary types of networking, point to point and broadcast.

History

The original “networks” were store and forward point to point. A “message” was created on computer A. Computer A would use a point-to-point connection to transmit the message to computer B. Computer B would store that message until it connected via a point-to-point connection to computer C, wherein it would transmit the message that it had stored to computer C.

These original connections were most often done by “dial up” connections. A “modem” was used to convert digital signals to audio signals. A computer would tell the modem to dial a number, the modem at the other end would answer. The two modems would whistle at each other and communications would begin.

Conceptually, we could consider three different things to be one long piece of wire. The two modems and the telephone system make a long wire. The ability to call different computers is the same as moving the far end of the cable to a different computer.

When computers dedicated more than one port to communications, it became possible to talk to multiple computers at the same time. A computer could be receiving a message from Computer A, while sending a different message to Computer C. Everything was still store and forward.

We then created dedicated computers that had many ports. This allowed that computer to receive and transmit to multiple devices at the other end of the point-to-point connections. We labeled this a “switch”.
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