The Future of Wi-Fi is Routerless

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True, but you only have control over the hardware in your house.

Gosh... thinks.... how many modems and how many routers do I have here, in my house?

Well... there's my old USB SpeedTouch (and this desktop was the router, when I was using that as the modem), a PCMCIA modem card, several other dial-up modems knocking about.

Then there is my Zoom modem/router, superseded by my BT Home Hub modem/router. Both those support WiFi. I might plug the Zoom back in, to use it as a plain router.

As my Acer Aspire has both WiFi and Ethernet, I can make it act as a router - though it has no modem.

And... I suppose the two "Ethernet via mains plug" thingies are somewhat clever. They not only act as modems between RJ45 socketed Ethernet and the house power lines, but in fact you can plug in more that two of them, so they must be capable of acting as routers, to some degree. (Or maybe something a little less impressive, such as switch/repeaters.)

not really sure why your obsessed with modems, or why you think people are getting modems and routers comfussed? But I think most people have thrown out there dial-up modems a long time ago (or simply dont have a need for one). Most people only have a need for one modem for there high speed, and want a wireless router to go along with it, because pluging your laptop directly into a modem and trying to walk around the house with it is no fun at all . Just not understanding the point you keep trying to make

Well, my point is one of security.

For those who DO NOT know, a router (at least, any decent one) has a NAT firewall. This makes it impossible for any inbound communication to happen unless it was initiated by a request from within the local network. Couple that with a decent firewall on your PCs, and you have pretty good security from someone trying to hack into your systems. That's why trojans are so commonly used. The hacker needs you to bring something in voluntarily which will open a door for him to exploit later.

MODEMS (as a rule) DO NOT have this natural firewall protection, and software (anti virus and firewall) is never 100% foolproof. Never mind that if you use dial-up, you don't use a router so you are totally dependent on your anti virus/firewall software. The only help you have outside is if you subscribe to a ISP (internet service provider) who routes all communication through a fire walled network as a service to you (much as many online e-mail services like Yahoo virus scan attachments to your incoming and outgoing e-mail).

So, if they ever did make a "routerless" broadband, I would have serious questions of what happens to that hardware firewall I used as a layer of protection against hackers.

Strange idea... until about a year ago, I was not using a router (routinely). I was just using my Speedtouch USB broadband modem - no routing capability in that box at all.

It was only because I wanted to add WiFi into the mix that I got a router, which had rather nice inbuilt facilities, but of course would not be any very serious firewall protection, as the code was static. People don't often re-burn their modem's software. In fact, I had some glitches, when setting up the modem in the new box, so for a while, I just used it as a WiFi/router, with the USB modem still providing the broadband connection.

Sadly, now that I have switched to the even more "all singing, all dancing" modem/router/WiFi/VoIP box, the inbuilt software is pathetically dumbed down and disorganised. It even seems to reset itself to factory default... merely on power outages.

So far as the OP - WiFi has always been, and will always be, essentially router-less, by definition. You can't "route" an omnidirectional radio signal.