I’m confused, I used to think that modem are an old thing now and nobody uses them as modems have a SIM installed in them for internet connection through ISP and it’s like a pen-drive which is insertable to a any PC like normal Pen-drives.
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A modem talks to the outside world, it speaks the language of Comcast or spectrum or whatever service provider you use and translates and passes that information on to your own network. A router is like the receptionist at hotel, they assign room numbers for people on the network and filter incoming and outgoing communication and send it off to your room, or your Xbox whose been assigned room number 5, etc etc.
Wireless is another separate standard and function but commonly attached to the same device you called a router in most homes. A device that communicates with wireless devices but doesn’t handle the assigning of IP’s(so separate from the receptionist) is considered an access point. Consider what happens if you go to the hospital and hop on the guest wifi. They can’t possibly have one wireless access point for the whole hospital, they might have dozens or hundreds and as you walk from area to area you just switch up which access point you talk to but it’s all quick and seamless. That’s because your still on the same network and assigned the same IP(room) from the same receptionist, otherwise your always be getting interrupted in signal as you leave and join new networks.
So your router combines the router functions and access point functions and most people say your using a wireless router. You still want to talk to the outside world though and for that you need the modem.
Some people have separate modem and wireless router devices, some service providers will provide you with a big device that is a modem, router and wireless access point all in one.
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