How does this work (TCP/IP)?

John am Rhein · November 11, 2006

I now have this BT home hub up and running with 2 pcs linked to it over the wireless LAN.

Works well: 7,616 Kbps!

However, how does it work? Formerly, I had an ADSL router which gave my PC an IP address (the IP address I assumed was the one by which it went on the internet, i.e. a different IP address from any other computer on the internet anywhere in the world).

Now my pc's have local addresses of the form 192.168.1.X which are clearly NOT unique across the whole internet. The 'home hub' (router?) has its own IP addresss (presumably unique across the whole internet) and, it seems, this address is somehow shared by BOTH my PCs - or indeed ANY PCs which access the internet from the local network.

So how does this work? i.e. what stops the two PCs' data interfering with each other when they have - effectively - the same IP address?

Montse · November 11, 2006

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