How to Set Up and Optimize Your Wireless Router

You got a new Wireless router to connect to the Internet for the first time, but you see it is not like taking it out of the box and directly plugging in the cable to get the wireless internet connection. You need to manually set up the wireless network and make sure you keep it secure enough so nobody could able to hack into it. It is not even hard to set up a wireless internet connection through the router if you follow this guide.

Also nowadays WiFi manufacturers are taking every small step to make it easy with just a one-click installation and setup of the WiFi router. Some manufacturers take even small steps to make it simple for customers like what Google WiFi is doing and working on providing a faster internet connection.

But always remember that, just because a manufacturer makes it simple for a consumer to just plug in the Internet cable to get faster wireless internet. It does not mean that it is secure and does not mean you cannot improve the performance or the range of wireless router to improve further.

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Selecting the Best Router

The main thing which connects your home to an Internet is the router. So it is always important for you to choose only the best Router that is available in the market. If you buy a router which is not capable enough to meet the current standards, you might end up in a less secure wireless router which could be easily hacked by random internet strangers and neighbors, who are smarter than you. Also, there are some routers available in the market which still supports WEP for security, WEP is known to be no longer secure and there are so many WIFI encryption protocols available in the market with routers.

Connecting to Internet
Now that you have selected the best router available in the market after comparing both the price and performance of the router, you can now follow some of the steps below.

Now You need to turn off your router
Then remove and disconnect the Ethernet cable from your PC
Now you should be able to connect the Ethernet cable to your Router
Now turn on the Router or Modem
Until all the lights stop blinking, Wait till that
Use your Ethernet cable to connect both the PC and router as a Bridge
Now Turn on Your PC!

If you are using any modern router, they could use DHCP to automatically assign an IP address so you will be able to connect yourself to the Internet.

But things cannot be said true if you are using an ISP supplied router, you need to configure the router which is being supplied by the ISP. You can able to set up to work as bridge mode which helps your router to do things on its own for handling everything.

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Accessing Management console

When you connect Router and PC with one another, you will be able to customize the router configuration based on that. Modern Routers allow you to manage the configuration panel just with a web browser or mobile applications, which also comes with Default IP address settings, administrator account ID and password management very easily. The default IP address also differs from other routers, so you please check up the Website to know more about it.

Open an Internet browser
Enter the Router IP address which you could find on your router or listed in the website of your router manufacturer
Enter 192.168.0.1 in the browser and Enter it
From there it will ask you to enter your administrator username and password for you router, After Entering your Administrator username and password to authenticate yourself, now you will be able to access the Router’s management console.

If you could not able to find your Router IP Address, It is better for you to check out this page for a list of Router IP address from various Manufacturers like TP-Link, Cisco, D-Link, LinkSys, NetGear, Asus, Belkin and Billion
Keeping Yourself Secure!

One of the most important things to remember is changing the router’s default password, because the Neighbours are aware of the default Router ID and Password just by searching the Internet. It allows them to easily access and use your network, They could able to use scripts to attack you and track your internet activities using Open source Software widely available on the internet for Testing purposes. So to keep yourself secure and one step ahead than them, It is Important to make sure that you change your Default ID and password which came along with your router.

Also keep your modem firmware updated always which has been released by the manufacturer for your model. Keeping your modem firmware updated will help you prevent yourself from latest security threats and bugs. Also sometimes Modem Firmware brings performance Improvements too. Updates help you with Longevity of your product.

Static IP Address Allocation

Some of the devices like Servers and printers needs to have a same IP address and you cannot let these devices changing their address continuously. You need to allocate and assign a static IP address for these kind of devices. You can able to do these by logging in to router management console and Head over to Lan Setup from there you will be able to make changes and assign IP address.

Enabling Static IP address

Now after following the above steps, you will have some IP address available. You should manually assign addresses to specific devices that need the static address. Allocate a Unique IP address, Network Subnet mask, Gateway address and DNS server address for the Network of your device. You will be able to use any address between 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.254 as an IP address. For the subnet mask it should be 255.255.255.0 and also the Gateway and DNS address is the same as the router IP address. Also, make sure you never repeat the usage of static IP address which is being assigned already.

Enabling your Wifi

You can now focus on setting up the Wireless network and please make sure that the computer is connected with network using a Ethernet cable. Never configure your wifi using wireless options as you will lose your connection after the setup is completed.

Navigate to router management console and select wireless setup
Enable the wireless network and also setup the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz network based on your preferences in a Modern dual band routers.
Give a SSID name of your wireless network based on your choice.
Use the WPA2, WPA2-PSK or other modern encryption for your wifi network to keep yourself secured.
Do not use the Default encryption like WEP which is easy to be hacked!
Give a difficult password or key which is harder for anyone to guess or relate with

Now that you have done the above steps, you are already ready to be connected to internet.

Sharing data across home using Servers

One of the important things about setting up a home network and a strong key is the advantage of sharing data across Home. A server helps you to achieve this and many users do not make use of these features. Network Attached Storage helps you to achieve this by sharing data across the home. Many modern routers also allow to plug in USB storage devices like hard drives and printers to take advantage of Network for the variety of purposes. Just make sure, you have a strong password to keep yourself secure!
Additional Features of Your Router!

So many of the other features your router can do which helps you to make your network more secure and also improve its performance or range.Using the help of QoS you will be able to control network traffic, also connect media servers with the help of Plug and Play. You can do port forwarding, Dynamic DNS and Remote management with the help of your router.