This piece is the first in a multi-part series on personal password management — an increasingly important topic to help you safeguard your personal information as we perform more online activities.

I would like to get Tipmont internet, but changing all my device WiFi passwords is a hassle!

We hear this a lot. Many homes have dozens of connected devices, and changing internet providers means changing all those passwords to reconnect to your WiFi, right?

Not at all.

If you know your current WiFi password, our installation technician will configure our fiber-optic router (which is included with your service) to match the network and password settings of your previous service. In doing so, all of your devices will simply reconnect to the same network name using the same password.

If you don’t know your current WiFi password, see if there is a sticker on the bottom of the router that has the network information and WiFi password. If not, our installer technician can help you to create a new password that can be used to connect all your devices.

Once you have our service, our Managed WiFi allows our local support team to help you change your WiFi password any time you need help.

Alternately: If you prefer to use a WiFi router you already own, we can place Tipmont’s fiber-optic WiFi router in “bridge mode.” This enables you to use Tipmont service but maintain the WiFi router you own as the primary network management device, connecting all your devices the same as they did previously.

Tip: Are you using a strong WiFi password to prevent someone from using your network without your realizing it? Bitwarden offers a free and secure password strength-testing tool at bitwarden.com/password-strength.

Next month, we’ll walk through personal password managers — services that store all of your passwords in a secure online vault, help you identify weak and reused passwords, and create longer and stronger passwords for each login.