In Figure 5, you can see the connectors found on a typical wireless broadband router.

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Figure 5: Wireless broadband router.

The physical installation is very simple: connect the router’s power supply plug to the router, connect the cable coming from your broadband modem to the port labeled “WAN,” connect the router’s power supply to an AC outlet and that’s it. If you will only use wireless connection that is all you need to do.

But pay attention. One of the main problems setting up a wireless network is that generally the router will work out of the box, meaning that any computer with wireless network capability will be able to use your signal right away – including your neighbors. Thus people will be able not only to steal your internet connection, but also steal your files if you have file sharing enabled. To fix this problem you need to enable WPA2 encryption (WEP and WPA encryption are flawed and should not be used). We cover all steps you need to go through to keep your wireless network secure in our Basic Security in Wireless Networks tutorial.

If you will connect computers to the router using regular network cables keep reading this page. Otherwise, you can go ahead to the next page. We recommend you to connect at least one computer using a regular cable to your wireless broadband router in order to make its initial configuration.

For connecting PCs to the router using regular network cables you will simple need pin-to-pin network cables for each computer you want to connect to the network (this cable can be bought already assembled and is also called UTP, Unshielded Twisted Pair; you should buy a cable called Cat 5, which is usually blue, red or gray).

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Figure 6: Typical network cable.

On the router side, each cable will be installed on any available LAN port (see Figure 5). As we mentioned earlier, usually broadband routers come with four LAN ports. If you need more than that you can simply buy an extra switch and connect this device on any LAN port of the router in order to expand the number of LAN ports available.

The other end of the cables will be connected to each computer you want to connect to the router. Nowadays all computers have at least one 100 Mbps LAN port (i.e., embedded network card), if you are using a very old PC that doesn’t bring this feature you will need to buy and install a network card (also called 10/100 Network Card or NIC, Network Interface Card) on it. On Figures 7 and 8 you see how the LAN port looks like on a desktop and on a laptop. Of course you will probably want to connect all laptops to your network wirelessly, however it is possible to connect it using a regular network cable as well.

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Figure 7: Example of a LAN port on a desktop.

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Figure 8: Example of a LAN port on a laptop.

You don’t need to worry about installing the network cable on the wrong jack: the network plug (which is called RJ-45) only fits the network card.

Now let’s see how to configure the computers to have access to your network.