Definition of a Routed network:
A routed network is just a network that gives you access to servers and other network devices that are not on your physical network. If you have ever connected to the internet, you have used a routed network!
How do they work?
Every computer has a number, also known as an address, and these addresses are used to send messages back and forth. Since all of the servers on the internet are not located in your building, the traffic to the internet must be routed to the internet through a device that is actually called a router. A router forwards messages to either the server in question or another router. Any break in this chain will cause your internet to stop working.
If your internet stops working, the first thing you must do is look at the physical connections and hardware. This means that we need to make sure that everything is physically connected together and working correctly. Assuming your computer is on, check your router and make sure it is on and that the lights are correctly illuminated. Next check the network cable going into your computer and make sure it is seated properly. Now do the same with all the cables connected to the router. A high percentage of network issues are simply a matter of cableing not being connected or improperly secured.
Troubleshooting
You may need to do some troubleshooting if the internet is still not working. You need to get to a command line in order to do this. The command line is the black box with the white cursor where you can directly type in commands. Click on START>Run. Type “cmd” in the box that comes up. Now we are at the command line. You now need to check the settings. Type ipconfig, and press the enter key. This shows you the network address. If it is 0.0.0.0, or starts with 169.254, this means that your computer has no address. Restarting your router will generally fix this. From here on out, the only way to fix what you find will be to contact your Internet Service Provider, or ISP. The next thing we will try is the ping command. Type “ping <web address>” at the prompt. As an example: ping http://www.google.com. You must leave a space after the word ping and the address must be the full address. This is going to tell us two things. The first thing it will do is turn the name into a number. If it cannot do this, it will return a message saying, “unable to resolve host”. This means that there is a problem with the Domain Name System (the system that converts numbers to names). If it resolves the name, it sends out little messages to see if the other server is out there. If it is not, it will say “100% packet loss”. Either way, you will know what to tell the ISP. You local service