Sorting the Difference between a WI-FI Router and an Access Point
Emmanuel Olulana
Network Engineer || Python programmer || Web Developer with Django || Cybersecurity enthusiast || Graduate Information and communication engineer
If you were to see an access point and a wireless router would you be able to tell the difference? Well be you can tell the physical differnces cause most of them dont look the same, but will you be able to identify what they do differently? That i can say maybe not. so today will be looking at the differences between the two hardware network components. the Good thing is they are very similar but are not the same, someone could say they are distant the access point is a distant relative to the WI-FI router.
As always we start with definitions. so what is a router? A router is a network device that perfoms routing operations. it is a bit anticlimactic but that is all there is to it, the major task it just performs is routing operations. Now you would ask what are routing operations? Routing operations are basically how the information or data you send and recieve gets to its desitination. This is just a basic definition. So now what are those things that are in your house that you use to connect to the internet? well it is a combination of things really, but at its core it is a router.
Now then, what is an Access Point? An Access Point is sa device that provide wireless communication to a wired network. To put it in simpler terms it the bridge between the wired network and the wireless network.
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So chill someone right now will be like "I can connect to my router wirelessly" well that is true but that type of router like I said before is a combination router which is made up of Routing tech, Access Point tech and Switch tech. we will learn about switches another day. Normally a router does not offer wireless technology but as tech as advanced over the years they are able to add the Access Point feature to it and still have the routing functionality at its core.
Now you understand the basic differnces between the two network Devices and you can see how they are related like I mentioned before. With this you should be able to confidently say that you now know a bit more about how networks work. Thank you again for reading.