A chunk of cisco I don't understand...!

[olf]

My wife has an IP phone at home with a link to her workplace. It's plugged into one of these:

www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6200/index.html a Cisco 871 router.

What the hell is it and what else can I use it for on our home network of one desktop, two laptops, two printers and an external HD that I'd like to be acessible over out network...

Any help much appreciated!

[tank slapper]

It is a router - it routes network traffic. It really depends on how it is set up as to what you can do with it. If your wife's work have configured it to connect to just their network you may not be able to use it for anything else, but if it is only running IP phone traffic it may well just be a plain connection to the net which you can use in the normal way.