Network Connectivity Hardware

A computer network depends on physical hardware that moves data between machines beyond the cabling or wireless medium itself, and two of the most familiar such devices are the modem and the router. A modem converts a computer's digital signal into a form that can travel over a telephone line, cable system or other carrier medium and back again, historically the standard way a home or office reached an external network. A router then directs data packets between separate networks, most often connecting a local network to the wider internet, choosing the path each packet should take toward its destination. Wikipedia's own overview article on computer networks names modems and routers together with switches, bridges, hubs and firewalls as the basic building blocks networks are constructed from beyond their transmission media, grouping these devices as one functional hardware class distinct from cabling or protocols.