Residential gateway is a term that has been widely used to identify any device that acts as a single access point to or from a home network or home computing. It is much like any other network gateway or edge device, except that its functionality can vary significantly. Therefore, the term has been used for anything from a simple modem to more robust equipment that provides routing and security functions for a home network.
A wireless router can be used as a residential gateway.
A device used as a residential gateway is essentially similar to a border gateway device used for a larger organization such as a corporate network that controls how two networks interact with each other. Depending in some way on its capabilities, it allows for the creation of what is known as an Autonomous System (AS), or a network of computers separated from the Internet as a whole by this gateway device. The residential gateway has its own address that it advertises to the world, while the computers and devices that make up the home network have their own internal address structure. While the device can join a home’s local area network (LAN) to the Internet as a whole, it is also sometimes used when joining a home’s LAN to a community wide area network (WAN). The largest WAN has its own largest Internet gateway.
Coaxial cable, which is typically used when installing cable television, can also be used for computer networks.
In its simplest form, the residential gateway is a modem, such as those used by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to connect to the service provider’s network. In this case, it is only capable of sending network traffic from a personal computer through a specific type of connection, such as a telephone line, coaxial cable, radio frequencies, etc., converting the data into a signal. This type of device does not allow the creation of a home LAN; however, if multiple computers within the house need to access the modem, you will need to set up one computer to share your Internet connection, or a small switch or hub connected to the network. modem. The residential gateway type of modem also lacks protection or networking.
However, other devices are sometimes sold separately and provide other useful gateway services for home networks. Those with routing capabilities will be able to handle tasks such as establishing a LAN through an explicit Internet Protocol (IP) addressing scheme and running Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) services to facilitate networking. To further assist the network, these residential gateways will provide Network Address Translation (NAT), which allows modification of certain packet addresses to route those packets entering the LAN via one address to an internal address. specific. For security purposes, some devices also offer packet filtering firewall functionality that further protects your home network from malicious attempts.
