🧠 What Exactly Is a Router?
Think of your home network like a mini-city block full of devices (phones, laptops, consoles). A router is the traffic cop at the corner: it directs each data packet (emails, streams, file transfers) to exactly the right device on your “block,” and then makes sure everything heads out to the wider internet the moment you hit “send.”

• Routes traffic between your local devices and the internet
• Assigns private IPs so each gadget knows how to talk to the others
• Manages data flow with QoS (Quality of Service) so your Zoom call doesn’t choke when someone else is streaming

Without a router, your modem would be shouting “Here’s the internet!” but your devices wouldn’t know who’s getting what.