High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A First Hop Redundancy Protocol (FHRP) is a computer networking protocol which is designed to protect the default gateway used on a subnetwork by allowing two or more routers to provide backup for that address; in the event of failure of the/an active router, the backup router will take over the address, usually within a few seconds. In practice, such protocols can also be used to protect other services operating on a single IP address, not just routers.