Modern router manufacturers have made home wireless routers easier for non-technical consumers to connect to. Newer versions come with different color codes for the ports, making it easier for home users to connect the necessary cables.
In addition, it is simplified with basic configuration settings by default.
So the lights on the wireless routers are on and you can browse the internet. Great, but not fully utilized – you’re missing out on all the extra security features to protect your home network.
The following are the simplest steps to get it up and running properly, without much effort.
1. Have you already bought your router?
Besides your home computer, this is the other important item for your home IT team, and you will need it.
If you haven’t bought it, you can get more information on wireless router comparison tech forums or websites. Depending on the age of your router and its features, you may need to upgrade it right away. Because some of them only support WEP encryption, and they are no longer protected.
So you got yours from your internet service provider. Good deal, right? Just a word of caution: most routers provided for free are not really feature rich.
Advanced routers will have features such as automatically selecting the fastest frequency bands available for each device and optimizing the Internet connection.
We recommend that you consider purchasing your own router. Two of our highly recommended ones are the Asus RT-AC5300 and the Asus RT-AC68U. Its prices may be on the higher side, but it would be a very good one-time investment. Imagine your family members using the same Internet connection without any slowness.
2. Access the network
Perfect! Now, you have your router and you are ready to connect it, right? Just follow the instructions below:
- Turn off your old modem
- Remove the Ethernet cable from your computer (the same cable connected to your modem)
- Now, connect that cable to the indicated internet port on your new router
- Turn on your modem and wait about two minutes or so.
- Power on your new router, and then wait another two minutes for it to boot up
- Get another Ethernet cable and plug it into your computer’s network port
- Now, connect the other end of the same Ethernet cable to the LAN port of the router
- turn on your computer
By default, almost all wireless routers should be able to do the setup automatically for you. So if the steps are followed correctly accurately, you should be able to browse Google or any other website now.
3. Get into the mind of your wireless router
Once the connection is established and the Internet is up and running on your computer, you can finally rub your hands together and command your router to do more.
Since most routers are managed by any web browser with a default IP address, we suggest you check your router’s instruction manual for that crucial information.
Once you have located them, you can continue with the following steps:
- Open your browser – it can be any browser
- Enter the default IP address of your router in the search bar and then press Enter
- It will ask you for your administrator username and password. Don’t panic, it’s all documented in your manual.
- Provide the credentials and then press Enter.
And there you have it: you are now inside the mind of your wireless router.
4. Change your router password
Before you start exploring the different settings available, the first thing you need to do is change the password on your wireless router.
Although it may be obvious to some, you’d be surprised how many people don’t do this at all. Look under your instruction manual, it should have a section to show you the area to change the password.
5.Firmware upgrade
Regardless of how old the router is, it is always a good practice to update its firmware. Because it addresses any issues the router may have at the current stage.
Again, check your manual for instructions because this process varies.
6. IP address management
DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. The jargon doesn’t matter. By default, your wireless router should be set to this mode.
Basically, DHCP manages the pool of IP addresses on your network. Your wireless router uses the provided IP address to find your computer and then routes network traffic accordingly.
If your computer or any other device doesn’t have an IP address, it will trigger a request to the router to provide one. Your wireless router will pull an IP address from its pool (also known as Scope), and then connect it to your device.
Your wireless router can also assign a range of fixed IP addresses (Static) to devices, such as your printer. If you prefer to use this method, follow these steps:
- Login to your router console (as mentioned above)
- Find LAN settings
- Assign a range of IP addresses for your router to use
- If you wanted to assign 15 IP addresses to your wireless router’s range, and assuming your router’s IP address is 192.168.1.1, you would set the starting address as 192.168.1.2 and the ending address as 192.168.1.16.
7. Activate your Wi-Fi connection
Now that you’re done with the necessary setup (and the hard part, too), you can start setting up your wireless network. It is a simple process and will only take a couple of minutes of your time.
First things first, connect your computer to your wireless router. You don’t want to lose any connections once configuration changes have been made.
Good. Let’s proceed to the final steps:
- Log in to your router’s console and find the section called Wireless Settings.
- Enable the wireless network (if it is not already enabled). If you’re using a dual-band wireless router, you’ll see two settings for 5GHz and 2.4GHz. You’ll need to configure them separately.
- You should then be able to see the channel settings. Make sure it is set to Auto.
- The SSID (the technical term for a network name). Change it to something you prefer and don’t leave it as default. It’s up to you, really.
- Set up encryption – It is very important that you do this. Review the list of encryption options and would like to choose WPA2-PSK [AES]. Because it offers the strictest level of wireless security.
- Once you have selected your option, you will need to assign a password to it. As a general rule, your password should consist of upper and lower case letters, with numbers and characters.
- The random mix of characters is absolutely the best. For example – ae!%3782@au. Be sure to keep your password in a safe place.
And there you go! Your wireless router should now be online and in working order. You can try connecting some devices to it and do some browsing.