Education Post 2   Part 2 of our Educational Series on Tech questions that you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask and if you did ask you probably soon regretted, covers the various boxes and terms that relate to getting you “on-line”; Modem, router, gateway, etc.     In the last Community Classroom Post we talked about what is WiFi and then wandered into various different media that could carry your signals; there was WiFi, Coax, twisted pair, Ethernet, Token Ring and so on.   The thing to remember is that Ethernet is a protocol (sort of), as is Token Ring (also sort of) whilst the cables are media for the transfer of Ethernet (or Token Ring). The media could be WiFI, twisted pair, Coax or other.   Here we have, at the top, a wobbly line, or box, which represents the Internet or other stuff that your PC uses to inform, entertain or educate you. This is supported by Ethernet which transfers it for you which in turn sits upon Wi-Fi or it could sit on twisted pair cables or even coaxial cable, but it is still Ethernet transferring your stuff.   SO for this lesson you need to realise that there are different types of media that can carry your signals using Ethernet as a transfer protocol (sort of).   When Chorus turn up to put fibre or DSL “internet” into your home they will supply some boxes, usually about 6’ by 4’ (I’m old enough to still work in Imperial but I think that equates to about 15cm x 10cm), although these sizes may vary.   Over the years there have been various different types of connexion to the Internet from dial-up over serial cables using RS232 (no that’s not the little robot thing that squeaks on Star War, it’s a connector standard, like Rj45 which we discussed previously, that transfers serial signals, analogue, from your computer to a device) through various renditions of ISDN, DSL and now fibre.   The first devices to connect were called ‘modems’ which was an early acronym for Modulator / Demodulator which converts analogue signal into digital signals.     An analogue signal is a continuous signal which represents physical measurements such as a voice or music. Analogue technology records signals as they are formed, naturally and are denoted by sine waves.   A digital signal is a discreet time signal generated by digital modulation in the form of binary 1 or 0, generally transmitted by an electric pulse of a defined duration denoting a 1 and absence denoting a 0. Digital is on or off and are denoted by square waves.   Basically the modem is the device that turns analogue signals into digital and back again.   The earliest version of modems would actually use sound to modulate and transfer digital signals. When one watches films from the 80s which have ‘hackers’ or computer users connecting to some mainframe somewhere they will undoubtedly play some sort of modem sound which is sort of wheee, grrr, grrr, blkip, blip etc. this is the sound that these things used to make when connecting with a remote device (handshaking). <click here for an example https://youtu.be/gsNaR6FRuO0 (https://youtu.be/gsNaR6FRuO0)>. The earliest ones actually used a telephone (yes kids I know that you connect your mobile phone to the Internet but we actually connected our landline ‘phones to the modem, as you would say these days ‘literally’. Alsom noite the round bit on top of the ’phone, a dial; we literally used to ‘dial-in’ to things)   That’s right, we actually placed the handset on top of the modem receiver, dialled the number of the remote computer (this could have been a modem bank in an ISP that then connected us to other computers through the early Internet, powered by steam).   Later on these improved and the modem could plug directly into the phone socket and the computer and make the calls without the need to use a combination as per the previous picture.   We really thought we were the bees’ knees when we had one of these in the mid-80s; ha, Ferris Bueller eat your heart out. These were in use right through until the mid to late 90s, at least I was using them for a corporate internet and PC to PC remote connexions for a medium sized business.   Later on a more robust system for corporates came out called ISDN and then ISDN2 (Integrated Services Digital Network). Notice the word ‘digital’ in the name? ISDN actually used ‘phone lines to transfer digital signals, rather than analogue, meaning that broadband was now available. Sigh, I’m running low on tea and have just brought in a new term, ‘Broadband’. Right, one minute to pop the kettle on (thankfully this will be quick because, unlike USA we aren’t on 110v and kettles don’t take 10 or 15 minutes to reach optimum performance, boiling).   Right back now; ·         Broadband is what we use these days, it is digital and simply means that a cable can carry multiple messages at the same time in both directions; we can send voice, data, video etc over the same medium (cable, Wi-Fi etc.). ·         Baseband only allows a single transmission in one direction. Analogue is generally baseband as a single wire can only transmit in one direction and one signal at a time.   To summarise, the modem translates analogue data from the ISP over the lines to digital which your device will understand and back again.   SO what is a router and what is a gateway? These two are essentially different names for the same device. Traditionally they were always called routers but Microsoft started to call them gateways in their configurations, but the terms are interchangeable., A router connects networks of different types and passes the information from one of these networks to the others and ensures that the devices get the right messages; connecting a fibre network to a Wi-Fi network is done via a router which is simply connecting the two different types of media. Your ISP will have provided a public facing IP address (which is how the outside world identifies your home) which will be something like 125.236.213.17. However, when you look at the settings on your PC you will see that it has an IP address of something like 192.168.1.17. Your router has given you that number for your internal PC and most home networks will all have a range of 192.168.1.x and the router routes the messages from the external network (internet) to your home device (internal) and back again whilst routing it between your Wi-Fi and the ISPO’s DSL or Fibre. There will be a future lesson on IP, so for this lesson you just need to understand that the network in your home is a different network from the outside world and connected by your router.   Okay, so now we are talking about two devices, but if you are on DSL you will look and see that there is only one device. Not long ago, 2000s and thereabouts, the ISP would supply both a modem and a router to afford you the connexion to their Internet services. It would have looked something like this, lots of cables, two power sockets required and two devices getting tangled up under your desk or on a shelf somewhere.   Over time, however, the manufactures combined the modem and routers into one device so that there became no need for separate boxes. Here are a couple of examples of a combo modem and router box. These are the ones that we are now most familiar with. These connect us to our ISP, generally a type of DSL connexion (Digital Subscriber Line).   There are various types of DSL connexion; ADSL (Asynchronous DSL) and VDSL (Very High Speed DSL).   Phew, we have talked about early modems, then a modem router combination, now let’s bring fibre into the equation.   Fibre is a much faster medium than any of the others and uses optical cables to transfer data at massively high speeds. Fibre is quickly taking over from DSL but due to the cost of installation it isn’t yet available everywhere. In fact there are places in NZ where even DSL is not available and other solutions are required; we will talk about alternatives in another lesson or tip of the day entry.   The question I hear most is ‘now that I have fibre I have to have 2 boxes, why?’   With the advent of fibre we have sort of gone back in time to the days of separate modems and routers, see above. The new box, called an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) sort of does what the old modems used to do, i.e. connect your router to the medium suppled by your ISP / Chorus. It basically transfers fibre optical cable signals into an RJ45 jack which you can then plug into your router (WiFi router) and carry on doing whatever tickles your fancy on the Internet.   More recently the manufacturers of the ONTs have combined the ONT with a WiFi router which looks something like this. This combines the ONT, Modem and WiFi router all in one box; you can tell if you have one of these as it will have antenna (bunny ears) sticking out somewhere ready to broadcast your WiFi.   “In that case”, I hear someone at the back shout out “in that case why do I still have to have my Spark router / modem box as well as an ONT, if the ONT actually has a WiFi router built in?”.   Good question ! Essentially you don’t, it could perform everything. However, in many countries there are lines of separation when providing Internet services with demarcation between the infrastructure provider (Chorus) and the ISP (Spark, ICONZ, Orcon). This demarcation was introduced to prevent a monopoly for one or two companies forcing the end customers to use the infrastructure provided by an ISP, like in the old days of Telecom or BT. The functions, as well as business models, have been broken up which is essentially great for the consumer as the infrastructure is provided by one party and then you get the choice of ISPs, rather than be tied to a single company who owns the cables as well as your Internet service, thus allowing you shop around and change ISPs on a whim, forcing them to offer better services and better prices. The drawback here is that the ISPs tend to want to sell you their own devices, preconfigured to “make it easier for the customer” to use. This then results in your having two boxes, again, as the WiFi and routing functions of the ONT are disabled. The ONT with bunny ears is not transmitting anything unless you configure it to do so. That’s why you now have two boxes with Fibre, once again leading to tangles, multiple power sockets required and a mess.   To summarise: ·         Modem – device to modulate and demodulate analogue to digital signals ·         Router – connects and routes between different networks (WiFi, ISP – Ethernet, Token Ring) ·         Modem Router – combines the above into one box ·         ONT – Connects your Modem Router to the Fibre network and your ISP ·         ONT with Bunny Ears – all of the above, but not configured by default.   Please refer back to the previous lessons and to various Tips of the Day as they will shed more light on all of this stuff and hopefully will allow you to maximise your experience and understanding.   We will start to talk about the IP numbers you often come across and what they mean and how they work, at least to a degree that hopefully won’t bore you, the dear reader, to insensibility.

Part 1 of our Educational Series on Tech questions that you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask and if you did ask you probably soon regretted; hopefully these posts will give you an insight into the devices you have invited into your home, how they work and how to talk to geeks about them.     The term “wi-fi” is bandied around quite a bit, along with “wireless” but what do we mean by this and is it in my home network.   In the old days radios were often called “the wireless”, as they communicated without a wire over radio waves, as opposed to telephones which were wired (remember in the days before mobile devices when you would never lose your ‘phone because it was secured to the wall by a cable? That’s right kids, we used to have to go into the hallway to ring someone and if we wanted to show anyone what we were having for lunch we’d have to carry it around the neighbourhood on our push bikes and knock on doors to show everyone).   Sorry, I digressed a bit there, but now that I’ve made a cuppa I can settle down and get on with the article.   Right, Wi-Fi…   Also called wireless as it allows our devices to connect without being secured to anything via a cable, generally what we would call an Ethernet cable, cat 5,6 or 7, or more confusingly an RJ45 cable. Just to clarify, for those that are interested in cable terminology, the terms I listed above all refer, in layman’s terms, to the same thing. However, as always in the world of tech, we have to over-complicate things, so here are some brief explanations of terms which will hopefully bring enlightenment to you, or more likely cause you to doze off, or for our younger readers, pick up their un-cabled mobile (wireless) device and post a picture of whatever titbits they happen to have in front of them: Ethernet – this refers to the underlying technology that runs over the cable; a series of messages called packets using a series of rules called protocols (IP is part of a protocol of the TCP/IP stack, more on this in a later post). In the “old days” there were other technologies that would be used to connect devices together, Token Ring being one of the main competitors, as well as some other proprietary ones. Token Ring and Ethernet could essentially run over the same types of cables, which in the old days were coaxial, generally 50ohm whereas television ran over 75ohm. Coaxial, was slowly replaced by twisted pair, which are the cables we use these days. Ethernet, and token ring, were the protocols (set of rules and messages) that sat on top of the cables. Token Ring and Ethernet, to use a simile, were like Beta Max compared to VHS, they did the same thing but one became popular, due to lower cost and higher efficiency rather than quality, and the other passed away into the realms of legend, only to be brought up by dusty old nerds when they get together over a pint of “Old Peculiar” and try to out-do each other by discussing the merits and infinitely fine details of the dear departed Token Ring. Essentially what we call an Ethernet Cable could just as easily be a Token Ring cable, or other, it just happens that Ethernet triumphed. CAT 5, 6,7 – Cat is short for category and simply refers to the evolution, or releases, of the cables. It consists of a number of “pairs” of wires, twisted together to form multiple passages for data transfer. Unlike coax which has a single core element and shielding, CAT5, and above, allow for multiple streams of data. Data is in the form of electrical pulses, so it can be used for things other than IT / computer stuff, such as sound, vision and so on. RJ45 – You might hear us types utter this term, which these days we tend to use interchangeably between CATx, Ethernet Cable, RJ45, Computer cable (only used by non-geeks). RJ45 actually refers to the connector which is on the end; that plastic thing with the knobbly bit you plug into the “modem” and into your PC. RJ45 is a technical standard detailing the connectors.     So, back, once again, to the Wi-Fi in our homes. In the early days of “The Internet” most homes and even some businesses only had a single computer, connectivity to the Internet, such as it was in those days, was achieved by using a modem directly attached to a single PC in the house and that PC would use the modem to ring, or dial, into a computer at their service provider and that would then connect them to the services which at that time constituted the Internet. As time wore on, much to the surprise of IBM who, in the 1940s, stated that there would never be a worldwide need for more than about 5 computers, each house ended up with more than one device, much like in a business / office where multiple computers were already connected to one another by cables, see above, (Ethernet or possibly Token Ring, but let’s not go into that again as I’ve run out of tea and really need to finish this article) along with file storage devices, email servers and printers, amongst other things. This connectivity was called a LAN (Local Area Network). Later on we will go into more detail about these things and how they work and fit together, but not in this article.   It wasn’t really viable for home users requiring multiple devices to have multiple ‘phone lines so that each PC could dial into a provider, so some bright spark came up with the idea of taking the office LAN model and letting people use it in their homes, so people started to use CAT5 (or above) cables to link their home PCs together, same as in their work places, thus allowing them to share the dial-up link to the Internet but also to share printers, files and other items. In order to enable these devices to share resources and get to the Internet another device, separate to the modem, was required; a router. A router does exactly what the name implies, or at least we can infer it from the name, it essentially routes the data from device to device and network to network, or LAN to LAN to WAN (Internet). In the early days these were separate items, but these days they are now combined into what everyone, mistakenly, calls a “modem”.  A later article will explain this in more detail.   Once the router was placed between the modem and the home devices it meant that everyone could share the dial up Internet connexion, as well as the other resources in the house. The router basically links everything together and ensures that the correct data / messages go to the right devices and back again. In a later article we will go into more depths about what a router does and how it works.   Over time the tech and business worlds realised that cabling was difficult and expensive and although necessary in places could be made defunct, the same as radios were wireless. A series of rules and standards developed, over time, to run Ethernet over radio waves as well as over cables, thereby removing the requirement for workers to be chained to their desk by the cables they required to use the shared resources, and, to a large fanfare of trumpets and heavenly choirs, Wi-Fi was released and adopted allowing home computers to talk to each other and to the Internet without cables, over Ethernet which ran over radio waves, i.e. Wi-Fi.   Here is a diagram that will, hopefully, clarify things a little but if not and if you are still interest, or by some miracle are still awake, or, for the youngsters, have beyond belief put down your mobile, it doesn’t then ask a question or pop in and see us and we will try to explain further.   Here we have, at the top, a wobbly line, or box, which represents the Internet or other stuff that your PC uses to inform, entertain or educate you. This is supported by Ethernet which transfers it for you which in turn sits upon Wi-Fi or it could sit on twisted pair cables or even coaxial cable, but it is still Ethernet transferring your stuff.   WiFi is simply a medium upon which Ethernet supports your “stuff”.   Hopefully that has helped clarify a few things for you, I think that’s all I will write now as the kettle has just boiled and tea awaits.   For now we'll be saying a big cheerio to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. – Borrowed from Douglas Adams, a truly hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was.   The next article will probably talk about routers and modems but might diverge into what IP is or something altogether similar, but not quite entirely unrelated to technology. See our tips of the day for further discussions on:   https://www.islandtech.nz/post/suffering-from-poor-internet-access (https://www.islandtech.nz/post/suffering-from-poor-internet-access)https://www.islandtech.nz/post/suffering-from-poor-internet-access-part-2-isps(https://www.islandtech.nz/post/suffering-from-poor-internet-access-part-2-isps)

From the feedback and questions we’ve received around our “Tip of the Day” posts we realised that we should also publish some entry level training for the Waiheke Community. Hopefully we can answer some of those questions which you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask and if you did ask quickly regretted every having done so.   We have added a new section to our website which will gradually build up and hopefully provide some insight into the world of technology which ordinary people (non Geeks) can understand.   We will be posting a number of articles which will talk, at a very high level, about some of the weird terms, functions and components we IT folk bandy around and which mean next to nothing to everyone else.   We will start with a basic outline of home network, Wi-Fi and build up from there. Such things as: ·         What is my home network? ·         What is Wi-Fi? ·         What is “The Cloud”? ·         What does the modem do? ·         What is a router? ·         What is an IP address and what does it mean?   These are just an example of what we will publish for your education; it might take a different route, depending upon what the authors feel like, what inspiration may have hit them or whether they have just had a nice hot cup of tea, or not.   There is a comments section below each post where you can ask for clarification or more information for each topic, as well as space under this post itself.   If you have anything specific that you would like us to address then please add it in the comments section below this introduction post