Both pieces of equipment are needed to connect your other devices to the internet. But the roles they play are different.

A modem-router combo merges two essential components of your home’s internet connectivity: the modem, which establishes your connection to the internet; and the router, which distributes that ...

Instead of wiring each of your devices to your modem, you wire a router to it. From there, that router broadcasts a Wi-Fi network. Any Wi-Fi device in range of that network can use whatever ...