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Getting started with configuring routers

So! You've just bought a beautiful box to connect your PC to the internet via broadband... and you're not sure how to make it work. Please note that this page addresses connecting just one sort of "beautiful box": A router/ modem.

You will, at least, have to put your username and password into the router. It will be connecting to your internet service provider (ISP) on your behalf. The things that authenticate you, that tell the ISP that you are you, a fee paying customer of the ISP, are the user id and the password, and the phone line you are using to connect to the service. (In many cases, you will not be able to use your broadband account except on a specific phone line.)

You may also have to change some of the settings within your router/ modem to make it "speak the right language" when it "talks" to your ISP. (I will refer to the router/ modem simply as a router in the rest of this.)

One "side" of the router connects to your PC. Eventually, this connection may be via wireless, but for setting things up, for configuring the router, it is usually easier to use either a LAN or serial connection. Your router's "getting started" material should help you here.

For configuration, you will probably start up a browser, e.g. Opera, Firefox, or Internet Explorer. You've probably used these before, to visit, say, www.google.com.

For configuration, you will start a browser, and then type in a string of 4 numbers, separated by periods (full stops). There will be no spaces. E.g., you might put in 192.168.1.1. The right number will be given to you in the router's "getting started" material. You may have to enter a username and password, too. (If so, there will be initial values, set up by the manufacturer. As a security precaution, you might want to change those to something known only to you, not to the several tens of thousands of people who've bought the same router.)

Anyway... it will seem like you are talking to the internet, but in fact the "web page" which will come up on your screen is coming from inside your router.

There will be places where you can fill stuff in, e.g. the username your ISP has assigned to you, and the password for that account. User "names" sometimes look like email addresses, which I find odd... don't be distracted by the phenomenon, if it applies in your case.

After you have made changes to the settings, etc, inside your router, you will often need to take some extra steps to confirm that you want to replace the router's old settings with the new ones. It's a bit like saving new settings in your BIOS. It is also like the "Okay" button, or "Apply" on many software configuration dialogs. If you fail to complete the "Save New Settings" steps, it is like canceling out of one of those configuration dialogs.

It "should" all "just work".... but if it doesn't, it won't hurt, and may help, to restart the router and / or the PC after making changes. It may also help to clear your browser's cache. (The browser can be restarted by unplugging it for a short while, if there is no more obvious way to restart it.)

If it all goes terribly wrong, and you are in a complete mess, there is usually a way to make the router/ modem cancel everything you've done, and change all its settings back to what it had when it came from the factory.

Best wishes for a quick and easy set up. It does go painlessly... sometimes!

If your router offers wireless access as well as the Ethernet (wired LAN) connections to the broadband modem, get things working via a wired connection first. Connecting something to the router via the wireless connection uses everything that the wired connection uses, and some extra bits. You will find it much easier to get the "non extra" things working first, postponing tackling the confusion of the additional elements involved in the wireless access.
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