Ever bought a new Wi-Fi router and, and while configuring it to its utmost, discovered a setting labeled “guest network”? Perhaps you’ve been wondering what that is.
If you don’t want to give your guests access to your primary Wi-Fi network (and password) or any other devices on your network, you can allow them to access the internet in your house through a guest network function, included on many modern Wi-Fi routers.
A few years prior, guest networks were not available on older Wi-Fi routers. When you have guests over, they need to access the internet for whatever reason, they will likely ask to join your Wi-Fi network and your password, of course.
You would hand over your Wi-Fi password to them. However, doing so can present a security concern. Since they can now access the internet through your Wi-Fi connection, you run the risk of having them inadvertently download a virus or malware that could harm other devices connected to your home network.
Likewise, if their device is already infected, it may spread viruses to other devices in your house once they connect to your network. Thus, a guest network is useful in this situation. If you have a guest network, guests can connect to it and use it exclusively for internet access.
This is excellent since it means they won’t be able to see or access any other devices in your house because their device is now isolated from the rest of your gadgets. You won’t even need to provide them with your primary home Wi-Fi password. It’s equivalent to having two different networks in your house.
How to enable Guest Network
To do this, you must access the router’s setup page in order to enable the guest network on your Wi-Fi router. You only need to open a web browser and enter your router’s IP address to accomplish this.
The location of the guest network settings page varies depending on the type of router you have. You can then modify its parameters from this point on. You can name the SSID of the visitor network, for example, guest Wi-Fi. After that, you can decide whether or not to use a password.
You should ideally give your guest network a password, for security reasons. Simply leaving it open allows anyone in the vicinity of your house to connect to your Wi-Fi network.
While a user on a guest network is limited and it’s generally a safer practice, they can still attempt to carry out malicious activities, or at the very least, they can hog your bandwidth.
Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure you disable any features that say something like “allow guests to see other devices and access my local network” so they are unable to see or access any other devices on your network.
You can then activate the guest network and the SSID broadcast after these settings are done. Lastly, simply click “Apply.” The wireless router would now broadcast two different SSIDs.
Both your primary home network, known as home Wi-Fi (or by any other unique name), and your guest network, known as guest Wi-Fi, will be broadcast simultaneously by the router. You can now simply instruct guests wishing to use your Wi-Fi to join the guest network and provide them with the password.
As a result, even if they can now access the internet, the two networks will remain segregated, preventing them from seeing or using any other devices.
To be clear, the guest Wi-Fi and the home Wi-Fi both originate from the same radio frequency band. They are the same band, not two different bands. To keep the two networks apart, the router only uses rules that act similarly to firewalls.
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