I was once embarrassed. I had a broadband Internet connection in my house. Yet, by knowing computer networking as I do, I had seven differently computers that shared that connection. Turns out, I was merely ahead of the curve.
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\nWay back when, it was common to have a broadband modem — or really any modem — and have that gizmo connected to only one computer. They even had A-B switch gizmos so that two people could “share” a single modem.<\/p>\n
In my home office, however, I had a broadband modem connected to a router connected to a switch connected to about five computers. I don’t use five computers. I use three. But my kids have computers, too. And because of those five computers on the Internet, I thought I was being a data hog.<\/p>\n
Not quite.<\/p>\n
The average today is can be anywhere from 4 to a dozen devices in a single home sharing the Internet connection. You have, on average, two computers. Then you also have cell phones, one for everyone. Then there are mobile gizmos like tablets and laptops. Throw in a few game consoles. Pretty soon you’re talking a lot of connections.<\/p>\n
How many? I don’t know. I made up “4 to a dozen” without looking up any hard facts. It seems reasonable.<\/p>\n
No longer do a feel like a broadband hog. In fact, I feel rather normal.<\/p>\n
Reading the router’s DHCP table (which is too complex of a thing to describe here), I see that there are 11 devices using the network presently. Honestly, between kids’ cell phones, iPods, and laptops, that seems about right.<\/p>\n
A few weeks back, I decided to inventory each device listed in the DHCP table. It was a daunting task because the table lists all the connected device’s IP addresses. So I had to visit each computer and mobile gizmo to check its IP address. I then checked the IP address off the list as being legitimate.<\/p>\n
Eventually I ended up with two gizmos I couldn’t locate. So, being a cautious type, I figured that the IP addresses were assigned to neighbor’s computers or perhaps some college kid out front mooching my signal. (And that would be tough because my system has a long, long password attached.)<\/p>\n
For the life of me, I couldn’t locate the gizmos.<\/p>\n
Eventually I found them: The Wii game thing and my son’s iPod, which he left plugged in and turned on, but which he wasn’t using.<\/p>\n
So no one was Bogarting my Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n
Still, 11 devices sharing the connection. Turns out that’s no big deal these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was once embarrassed. I had a broadband Internet connection in my house. Yet, by knowing computer networking as I do, I had seven differently computers that shared that connection. Turns out, I was merely ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3133,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}