Home Network, Gerber

In my house, I have up to 10 devices connected to my internet at one time. There are 3 cellphones, 2 laptops, a desktop computer, a Nikon camera, a Sony speaker, an Xbox, and a Wii. We use most of them every day, but not the Wii and Xbox. Most of our devices connect to the internet wirelessly. The desktop is the only one that connects with a wire to the router. The rest use WiFi.

While we learned about our networks, I learned a lot about how the internet actually works, and about how a home network is put together. I was kind of confused when we first started this unit. I have an Apple router that is very visible in my house, and I thought that it was my modem and my router. I ended up doing the first assignment incorrectly because of this and had to go back and find my modem. When I went back, I was very surprised to see that it connects to my router through my walls! I had heard that this might be the case during out class discussions, but I didn't know it was like that in my house. I had definitely never seen the holes in my floor! I also learned a lot about how the internet works. I didn't realize that information travels through packets all around the world and into space to get back to you. I had no idea how much trouble my Netflix shows had to go through to get onto my screen.

We also learned about ISPs, and how they control how fast our internet is. This made me kind of upset. We pay so much money for internet and they can give us slow connection on purpose just because they feel like it! I'm not sure if this is a marketing scheme or what but it seems pretty messed up to me. This makes me appreciate it more when the internet is fast and works well, and very angry when it isn’t.

If I could tell other people something about their home network, it would be that they should know how it connects to the world. I think it is really cool to see how the chords go outside and into the city. We are all really connected in that way, which is interesting because people are so different most of the time. I think that they should also know about the big corporations. What we learned about how our ISPs might make things off limits if you don’t have their network is insane! People should be able to view whatever they want on whatever network they have. As we said in class, that might be a violation of freedom of speech, which is not okay at all. I know that I have strong feelings about this, but I would have never known about it without learning about my network. That’s why I think that others should get the chance to learn about it, too.