The Importance of Understanding Your Home Network

As we begin our journey to understand networking at level 099, it's essential to start with what's familiar to most people: their home network. This is where we'll explore the critical components that make up your network and how they work together to provide a seamless internet experience.

Your Home Network: A Complex System

When you think of your home network, you might assume it's just a simple device provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). However, this couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, your network is made up of multiple components that work together to provide fast and reliable internet access. At the heart of this system is the router, which serves as the central hub that connects your devices to the internet.

The Router: A Critical Component

Your router is responsible for making it easy for your devices to use and share the ISP's connection. It allows you to connect to the internet from your router, making it easier to access online content and services. But did you know that routers can be quite large? They often have more than three times the amount of electronics in them compared to modern devices.

The Switch: A Fast and Reliable Connection

Beyond the router, we also have the switch, which provides a physical connection between devices on your internal network. The switch is similar to the router but serves a different purpose. While the router connects you to the internet, the switch allows devices on your network to communicate with each other. Without a switch, devices wouldn't be able to talk to each other because they wouldn't know how to route traffic.

The Switch: A Key to Faster Network Speeds

One of the most significant benefits of using a switch is its ability to handle faster network speeds. Unlike the router, which can bottleneck your network speed, a good switch can provide faster internal network speeds. This means that you can enjoy a seamless online experience without any lag or buffering.

Modem/ONT: The Backbone of Your Network

Another critical component of your home network is the modem slash ONT (Optical Network Terminal). This device provides internet access through various mediums, such as cable, fiber optic, or telephone lines. While it may seem like a simple device, the modem/ONT plays a crucial role in connecting you to the internet.

The WAP: A Wireless Access Point for Faster Internet

In today's wireless world, having a good wireless access point (WAP) is essential for fast and reliable internet connectivity. However, many devices provided by ISPs are not ideal for wireless networking. These devices often have limited ports, slow speeds, and poor coverage. In contrast, a high-quality WAP can provide faster internet speeds, better security, and more consistent coverage.

The Problem with ISP-Provided Equipment

One of the biggest issues with equipment provided by ISPs is that you're forced to rent it every month. This means that you're paying for someone else's equipment while also being subject to their terms and conditions. Moreover, these devices are often slow and have limited capabilities compared to what you can achieve on your own.

Improving Your Network: The Path Forward

While it may seem daunting to improve your home network, the good news is that you have the power to do so. By understanding how your equipment works and making informed decisions about what to replace or upgrade, you can enjoy faster internet speeds, better security, and more consistent coverage.

In future articles, we'll dive deeper into wireless access points, networking protocols, and how to set up a robust home network. We'll also explore the process of replacing or upgrading your router, modem, and other equipment to ensure that you're getting the best possible performance from your network. Stay tuned for more information on how to take control of your home network and enjoy faster, more reliable internet access.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign let's go upstairs foreign Hello everybody welcome back to level one text and uh we recently reached out to our float plane and patreon users and we were like hey what kind of content do you guys want to see especially for like level 099 stuff and almost all of you asked for networking videos we were trying to explain that in server closet it didn't work out yeah because that's a big topic there's a lot to get to but because it's 099 we decided hey let's start at the very bottom with stuff that you're familiar with which is your home network it's stuff from your ISP I mean don't we just instinctively know stuff from your ISP is garbage this is your all-in-one unit from your ISP sometimes they call it a modem router this one device is actually performing uh up to four critical functions for your network so what are they the first thing this is doing is uh it's your router the internet is your router allows you to from your ISP to connect to your overall Network the main job of the router is to make it easy as possible for your devices to actually use and share your isps connection this is what it looks like when it's not garbage it's it's kind of massive it feels a little large yeah I mean it might be possible to plug your computer directly into the internet through your isps equipment but generally it's not recommended it's not safe your router typically also provides security isolation to the devices behind it so we should also mention that not all routers look like this black people routers come in many form factors but generally it's going to have more than three dollars of electronics in it can't really say the same for this the next item is the switch now the switch offers the physical connection between the devices on your internal Network it looks a lot like the router doesn't it and in fact in the all-in-one you really can't tell them apart that well but a switch without a router is a much different animal it might not even work depending on how your network is set up so things couldn't even talk to each other because they don't know how to route they made the ports blue because you're an idiot the big thing about the switch is speed because you have to remember that your network speed is not the same as your internet speed you can actually your network speed can be way faster if you have a good switch some common speeds 2.5 gigabit that's actually that's not that common remember we're doing 0.99 networking no 10 gigabits no I would say gigabit is probably good for some of those items good them in the normal for like a decade it's time to move on from gigabit come on and it is a great way if you're finding slow internal Network speeds this is the piece that you need to upgrade yeah you don't want your internet speed to compete with your somebody copying something to the nas then we have the modem slash ont this is a cable modem this is a cable modem it also does voice but notice that it's only got the yellow Port again because you're an idiot this is Cable in an Ethernet app this is basically a media converter it's really not doing very much if you have an ISP that provides fiber optic service or something like that it might literally be called an ont it just converts from fiber optic to wired ethernet but wired ethernet that's pretty much the standard you could also have an ISP that provides your internet service through a telephone line and so it'll look pretty similar to this you'll have a telephone line that plugs in instead of you know a cable connector but then ethernet out on the other side you probably are thinking hey I really want to replace that modem and get better speeds but you might want to hold off on replacing the modem until you've seen our entire video video uh the next item on the list is the WAP oh this is my favorite no no wait no no no no no no it's not cardi B's thing it's wireless access point there's one in here you can't see it because it's kind of trash here it is as a separate device this is a wireless access point you can have even more than one of these for a mesh Wireless is becoming the go-to communication type that we use in our houses God forbid you have children God forbid even further you have teenagers you probably are getting your network heavily taxed by wireless devices using a better WAP can incredibly improve that the access point is the thing that provides security and connections to a whole bunch of devices I mean everybody's got like four or five devices now your phone your laptop what about Chromecast or stuff for your TV your Internet of Things devices your toaster needs to be on the network you know honestly it really does make sense for modern households to have multiple access points and a mesh like three or four even a relatively small house but it's hard to do that with your ISP garbage so I'm I'm looking at all these devices and to be fair you know I get one device from my ISP is this a Marvel of modern engineering no no not really it does everything but so miniature but not well and the problem with some of this stuff one of the biggest issues is you have to rent this equipment every month you're paying for their equipment and they're spying on you with it I mean it would be different if this equipment wasn't garbage more importantly for your everyday use this equipment is always going to be almost always going to be slower than what you can do yourself yeah and everybody wants faster internet and faster Network speeds right that's how we're going to improve your network I don't know a long enough timeline of renting equipment it's probably cheaper now remember the blue ports you've only got four on this thing but that switch that we showed before that's a 16 Port switch and those are you know like 100 bucks 150 bucks not even and you can get faster than that you can get one that's got fewer ports you can get a 48 Port you can go nuts whatever you want to do you can get better and more consistent coverage of your wireless with multiple access points you know Netflix and online gaming don't need to interfere with one another you it's within your power better security and encryption on this guy for sure whenever a guest comes to your house you can give them a different wireless network that's isolated from the rest of your network that being said you know you mentioned oh this is only 100 bucks 150 bucks don't buy anything just yet you probably need to watch the rest of the videos in this series to get an idea of what you need to buy and how to set it up but we will take you through that process together and we're going to do one piece at a time and take more time to look at them in future videos and we will be starting with Miss cardi B here and we're going to be telling you all about wireless access points which ones we think you should replace this garbage with and why eventually we will replace the modem or the uh the network interface the modem router that's going to be the hardest and you're going to have to be the most uh fully informed before you do that that's the top of the mountain we'll start you down here we're level 099 bye\n"