A personal router is conceived as a relay device that allows a user to reach the rest of the internet via one device. Other devices only need to conect with the personal routers, through either a short wire, or a very short range wireless link. These paths require much lower power levels, smaller batteries, more flexible form factors, and so on. The personal router need not have any user interface elements at all (e.g. it need not look like a cell phone, a PDA, or a laptop). It can be carried in the purse, briefcase, on the belt, etc, and perhaps can be a little more bulky than if it has to be held up to the head. It provides a point of interconnection between a range of very local interconnection methods to other consumer devices on the one hand, and to a range of wide area wireless services on the other hand. Further, this device represents the point of negotiation between the consumer and the set of wireless services with which he chooses to interact and is thus the natural place to implement the selection framework described above. The device's place in the architecture of network components is exactly that of a router, and thus the name.