The Internet Connection

This Internet Connection icon's appearance in the Network Connections window is the first indication that you get of being connected to a UPnP enabled router or Internet Gateway Device (IGD). It's also the way that you access some of the router information and properties that UPnP makes available to you.

Tip: If you've used XP's Internet Connection Sharing feature, you've probably already seen this icon and are familiar with what is does. XP uses essentially the same interface elements for UPnP enabled routers.

Double clicking on the Internet Connection icon (or right-clicking and selecting Status) brings up its Status window, which is a little more interesting. Most of what you see in this window is described in the XP Help topic "Internet Connection Sharing Discovery and Control overview", so I'll just focus on my "discoveries".

First, the Internet Connection speed reported by the Linksys router is incorrect (3.2Mbps when it should be 10Mbps). The D-Link correctly reports 10Mbps, which according to XP Home's Help is "...the speed in megabits per second (Mbps) at which the adapter with Internet Connection Sharing enabled is capable of operating", not the actual speed of data flowing to/from the Internet.

Moving on, clicking the Properties button on the Status screen brings up the Internet Connection Properties window shown in Figure 4 . Not much here, except for the checkbox that allows you to have an icon appear in the system notification area (that's the System Tray to Win98 folks...) when the connection is active, and the button that brings you to the more interesting Advanced Settings windows.

Figure 4: Internet Connection Properties

Tip: System notifications are off by default, so be sure to check the "Show icon in notification area when connected" box if you want to be alerted to changes in networking connections.

Before we move on to look at what's behind the "Settings" button, though, let's first spend a moment on UPnP's NAT Traversal feature.

Tags: router, Tutorial, UPnP,

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