RELATED ARTICLEWho Provides Internet Service for My Internet Service Provider? Your Internet service provider is the company that provides you with your Internet connection. For example, your ISP may [..]

A local area network is a small network that’s confined to a local area. For example, your home network or an office network is a LAN.

A local area network is a small network that’s confined to a local area. For example, your home network or an office network is a LAN.

A wide area network is a larger network that covers a wider area. Your ISP provides you with a connection to their own WAN, which connects to the Internet.

RELATED ARTICLEWhat Is IPv6, and Why Does It Matter? An Internet Protocol address, or IP address, is a numerical address that corresponds to your computer on a network. When a computer wants to connec [..]

A router is a device that passes traffic back and forth. You likely have a home router. It’s that router’s job to pass outgoing traffic from your local devices to the Internet, and to pass incoming tr [..]

A gateway is a device that routes traffic between networks. For example, at home, your router is your gateway. It provides a “gateway” between your LAN and WAN.

RELATED ARTICLEHow and Why All Devices in Your Home Share One IP Address Network Address Translation, or NAT, is used by routers to share a single IP address among many devices. For example, you proba [..]

The dynamic host configuration protocol allows computers to automatically request and be assigned IP addresses and other network settings. For example, when you connect your laptop or smartphone to yo [..]

A hostname is a human-readable label that points to a device connected to a network. For example, on your home network, your Windows computer’s hostname may be WINDOWSPC. Your other devices can connec [..]