Meaning – A designated router, is a piece of hardware that plays a very important role in wireless networking. It informs the end nodes, of the existence of other routers within the network and is also the chosen path for multiple routers on a multi-access network segment.
In a network, the router with the highest priority, is chosen as the designated router, and in case there are multiple routers with the highest priority, the one with the highest station address is chosen.
It is most frequently used as part of an Open Shortest Path First or OSPF link-state routing protocol for IP networks.
The process to select a designated router, involves testing processes like a neighbor discovery process and various types of IP messaging.
Example of usage – “The administrator had to check the station addresses of the routers on the network, in order to select the designated router.”
