The short answer is, no; whatever minimal protection a consumer-grade router might provide should already be being done by the phone company's equipment.

It's far more important that you make sure you have good malware protection, and make sure it keeps working.

 

I'm a little puzzled as to why a router would make your Internet connection secure. It could be that he was referring to the firewall that most home Internet routers have. But the port blocking capabilities of those firewalls are no better than the firewall that comes with Windows.

 

Generally the box that the fiber company provides is a "modem" ( I know it's not actually a modem) is also a router and in some cases a WiFi access point as well. If it has Ethernet ports on it you should be able to plug right into the "modem", it will should then assign the device an IP address if the device is not using a static IP address already, you should then be on the internet. Most routers that are built into the modem provided by the internet provider are not firewalls. You may be able to block some ports and a few other things but again they are not firewalls. A basic router is not a firewall either. You can use the router to close ports that you don't use and that will improve your network security a bit, but like Nevada said, it's not much better than what Windows provides. Generally speaking there is often a web interface into the modem which will allow you to check it's status and make configuration changes, can you access the web interface?


Also I happen to have some experience with phone company/ISP tech support, and they in the vast majority of cases are not IT people, so take what they tell you with a grain of salt.

 

You could get this and plug the telco modem into the blue port and your pc into the first yellow port and it should do what your looking for

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if the tech plugs into the cable coming out of your modem and has internet and you do not , you might have a bad ethernet card in your PC they can go bad

I am on my 4th or so router and it is the port that connects to the modem that most often goes out. used to be after storms and power outages it happened , less so recently

modem doesn't specifically mean to a phone line , it is simply a conversion device , it could be a radio modem , a fiber , a cable , it was just a telephone modem for so many people for so long that it is part of the nomenclature now if you don't specify what type of a modem it is it is assumed telephone although less by the younger generations as they don't ever remember having a dial up phone modem.

 

Thanks for the help. I found this video that explaines it.

Seems I don't need a router. The phone company offered to rent me one for $7 a month. LOL

 

I've always found that taking a chain saw to a problematic computer is more satisfying than using a router on it.

 

Rambo knows how to deal with a problem computer.