When high-speed internet first became a household luxury, you could only hook it up to one computer at a time. You had a wire that came out of your wall and plugged into your modem, and you had your modem plugged into the back of your computer; oh, how simple it used to be. Now, wireless routers make it possible to share your modem with all of your computers at once.

Wireless routers broadcast a network that all of your Wi-Fi enabled devices can join” laptops, MP3 players, Smart TVs, video game consoles, and the like. Most households choose to encrypt their data by password protecting their network. This effectively scrambles the information that you’re sending and receiving, be it passwords, credit card numbers, or anything else. Typically speaking, G and N wireless protocols”information that you’ll find on the router’s box or control panel”broadcast at a maximum range of 100 feet.

And really, the benefits of wireless Internet are obvious. You can sit on the couch and browse the Internet on your laptop. You can play online video games in any room in the house. You can use your Wi-Fi instead of your cell phone’s 3G data plan and save yourself some money. Best of all, you don’t have to drill any holes in your walls.