Rarely do I answer the phone on days off, but for some reason I decided to pick up a call. It was Saturday afternoon and because I had a few moments to kill while skipping from one event to another I decided to offer assistance. I could hear the frustration in her voice as she explained the issue.

She was having trouble connecting a wireless surround sound system. Normally we don’t get involved with audio issues but she said the magic word, “wireless.” Apparently the speaker set she purchased connects through the router rather than use its own transmitter.

Before calling me she phoned her internet provider and increased her bandwidth thinking that would alleviate some issues. To her dismay she had the same issue she started with. My suggestion was to purchase a better router because her current router couldn’t handle the capacity.

I hear similar scenarios all the time. Internet bandwidth and wireless routers are two separate variables but can be part of the same issue. It’s important to understand that internet bandwidth is outside the house and router throughput is inside the house. Routers can function strictly as an internal networking device without internet present.

I asked the caller to rattle off the devices that connect through her router and she was quick to reply with two printers, phones, tablets, computers, the new speakers and several gaming consoles. She added that everything seemed to fail on Christmas day soon after people started using their new devices.

Cheapo routers can only handle limited throughput and connections which is why she was having difficulty. The router she bought two years ago was just enough to handle a household of two or three people each having a phone and computer. Today’s wireless requirements dwarf those of even a year ago.

My suggestion was for her to purchase a more expensive and robust option that is designed to handle many simultaneous connections. I suggested she tally the number of devices in her home that use wireless and invest in a suitable router based on her current requirements.

Turns out she had 23 devices in her home that relied on the router. Between all the things she mentioned earlier, her previous router was getting confused. The new router is able to handle the internal networking much more efficiently allowing many more devices on the network.

Whenever I’m asked networking questions I always try and separate the internet provider’s equipment from the router. They are two different devices. Internet providers only worry about providing one connection to the house. Much like most people have one home address, the internet provider only gives one IP address.

Routers take the single IP address from the carrier and essentially split it into many local IP addresses. While the router is divvying internet traffic it’s also assigning IP addresses and handling traffic for devices like printers and her speakers that don’t use internet. Routers are no longer solely used for managing internet traffic.

We don’t typically count wireless connections because they’re invisible. Because there’s no wires we sometimes forget there could be dozens of devices simultaneously connected to the router. When there’s only one or two users in the house the $30.00 router will suffice, but add gaming consoles, phones, tablets, TV’s, laptops and four kids to the mix and the $30.00 router isn’t enough to handle all that traffic. Routers are definitely one technology to avoid being penny wise.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)