FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - What is the Difference Between an AP and a Router?
Old Dec 27, 2004 | 8:38 am
  #10  
jfe
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Originally Posted by redburgundy
And I don't understand why there's an option to enable DHCP in this mode; it seems to me that AP mode with DHCP enabled is equivalent to router mode.

OK, let me see if I can explain this a bit further

An Access point, is just like a hub, it allows traffic to go wireless between the wireless cards and the wired network

A DHCP Server assigns internal IP addresses that only work in the wireless portion on the network.

If you were to activate an access point with DHCP, the access point would assign IP addresses, but it wouldn't be able to connect to the other network, since it wouldn't know how to handle the traffic

That is where a router comes into place, the router knows how to route the traffic, when the internal addresses that were given to by the DHCP server request to go to the internet.

Hope this clears it up a little
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