"A router is an intelligent switch which directs network traffic to and from nodes on the network. Efficient transmission of information is based on the routing protocol, which selects the best routes between any two nodes. Three typical types of routing protocol are Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), and Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP). I prefer OSPF, which is based on the Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm; it calculates the shortest path to each node and is, therefore, the most efficient."