a router works pretty simple, network signal comes in, and distributes it over the network, the router itself maintains that network if you want to, because a router can be used as a DHCP server, what that is ? think of it as a teacher giving every student a number connected to their seats, so he knows where they sitt, and other kids can look at the list too and see where the others sit (for passing notes etc) a router and a switch are pretty similar, but a switch doesn’t have stuff like DHCP and just helps connect a lot more machines to a network i hope that’s a bit clearer than wiki…