Asklemmy

43891 readers

1358 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Interwebs ELI5 (aussie.zone)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Could someone explain why we can’t just plug the average PC etc into a ‘raw’ internet line (like just entering a house) and have a mini modem on the motherboard do the translation work?

I know there’s a limit to IP addresses, and that it’s maybe easier to have a little box do the work where it enters a building.

… but apart from that?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for all the responses. V interesting.

The other day while shopping for a new modem-router, we kept finding good deals only to realise that they were only routers. No fibre-to-the-house for us yet so dems no good. Don’t want to chase around finding a separate modem too. Got a TP-Link Deco in the end. It seemed the easiest / best thing available to the physical Saturday consumer in need.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Just to add a bit of discussion on the modem vs. modem + router thing. I know it’s a pain to have to get two devices; cost is higher; also two things to worry about hooking up/configuring.

At my previous place I bought a Motorola modem in 2012 or so. I kept that modem for 10 years and it chugged along delivering the speeds I paid for. Because it simply had an Ethernet port on the back of it, it meant that I went through 3 or 4 routers in that period. Some were replaced because I got a router for free from a friend and wanted to install custom firmware. Some were swapped in because the previous one failed, and the last one was added because I upgraded to a Ubiquiti Edge Router and two separate WAPs.

None of this would have been possible with a combo device.

Again, I’m not trying to convince you or anyone else that this is a path for everyone, just adding a different way of viewing the two devices situation. It offers you flexibility and plug-ability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Sure. Sounds good. I saw lots of stand-alone routers on the shelves, but nary a solo modem.

My query was purely theoretical anyway.