Internet Access for My PC and Smartphone

In this chapter, details of how your personal computer (PC) and smartphone are setup to enable you to use the Internet is explained. The Internet settings information explained in this chapter applies to all PCs, laptops, tablet computers, pad computers, wearable smart devices, and smartphones. This chapter has three sections, which all use simple and practical examples to explain the IP network setup and gateway/router operation principles. In the first section, the IP network connection setup is described based on a PC connection to an Ethernet network. Both the manual TCP/IP network connection setup method is introduced followed by a description of the automatic setup method, which uses the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). In the second section, the IP address and subnet configuration method is described using a project example. The method of how to set the subnet mask size and how to assign IP addresses in a subnet is described. This includes setting the IP addresses for the gateway/router interface(s), all PCs as well as the broadcast IP address of the subnets. Using the IP address and subnet configuration setup, in the second section, the project continues to setup the gateway/router’s IP routing table. In the third section, a description of the routing operations conducted when an IP packet is received is provided, which helps to understand how network equipment (i.e., gateways and routers) actually operates.