What’s the difference between a router and a wireless access point?

Question

What’s the difference between a router and a wireless access point?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Lots really. A wireless access point only connects devices wirelessly. It does generally not have a firewall or the ability to control traffic etc. A router is what connects a wifi network to the internet so it has a lot of functionality built in to protect the internal network from the internet. It also routes all the traffic between your house / office and the internet including hiding your internal IP range through a process called NAT (Network Address Translation). A router will be more expensive and this is due to the added functions.