Your devices are on a network
What joins your laptop and your phone to each other, and to the rest of the world?
Your laptop, your phone and your TV are already on a network. A network is devices joined together so they can send each other messages. Some join by cable. Others join by Wi-Fi, which carries the same messages by radio.
Your laptop and your phone each have an IP address, a number that says where they are. It works like a street address: messages are sent to it.
Three kinds of box hold the network together.
- An access point sends and receives the Wi-Fi.
- A switch passes messages between the devices plugged into it, like a building's internal mail room.
- A router passes messages from your network on to the next one, like a sorting office passing parcels on.
Press play for a tour of one home.
Only one device in the house sends messages on to another network: the router. The laptop and the phone never need to know the way out. Anything meant for the outside world, they hand to the router.
Past the router, the messages leave the house. The next router belongs to your internet service provider, the company you pay for your connection.
From there, messages cross networks run by other companies. All of those networks, joined together, are the internet.
Key takeaways
- A network is devices joined together, by cable or by Wi-Fi, so they can send each other messages.
- Switches and access points connect devices inside one network. A router connects one network to the next.
- The internet is many networks joined together. Your home router is where your network meets it, through your internet service provider.