Ethernet switches
OMTT
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Has anyone got any experience with using ethernet switches to add extra ports to your router?
I just got my Sky hub for when we change over to their fibre service on Monday & was hoping it would have some extra ports on it so I can run everything through ethernet but it only has 4 & one is used to connect to the Openreach modem.
I have another 5 devices I'd want to connect wired but only 3 ports available & don't want to have to change the cables over.
Any recommendations on any that don't have to be plugged into electricity (if that's possible with them)?
I just got my Sky hub for when we change over to their fibre service on Monday & was hoping it would have some extra ports on it so I can run everything through ethernet but it only has 4 & one is used to connect to the Openreach modem.
I have another 5 devices I'd want to connect wired but only 3 ports available & don't want to have to change the cables over.
Any recommendations on any that don't have to be plugged into electricity (if that's possible with them)?
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Passive switches do exist are crap. They limit the speed of your network traffic, not good for streaming. You can get weird network issues arising and limit your cable length. Also they tend to only really be splitters so 2-1 rather than add 4 ports.
Simple enough to plumb in.
Cable from router goes to the switch and then your devices go to the switch too.
Be wary though that the bandwidth wont be shared as you may think.
Say if you have 4 devices into the switch and just the router connecting via wifi to devices, the router will still take up to 50% of the bandwidth.
You need to plan what devices plug into what. There are guides online.
eh ??
But for most people a 20-30 quid gigabit switch will be fine unless you are into the finer points of QOS/vlans etc just try and get one with as many physical ports as possible
what he means is if you have a switch with 10 devices connected to the router in one port. and another device connected via wifi to the router...
...all devices requesting lots of bandwidth the router is likely to give 50% to the wifi device and 50% to the switch. so the devices on the switch will get 5% each.
was pretty clear to me.
Its says about the router taking up 50% of the bandwidth, nothing about how internet traffic is prioritised.
For most people a 100M switch will be good enough.
Indeed, why should the router give 50% of the internet traffic to the wireless if there are more devices on the wired section via the switch? I don't know how they prioritise but just giving 50% to the wireless doesn't make any sense at all. Since in most cases it's the download that takes the traffic the priority is beyond the router anyway but goes back to the ISP. The speed of both the wired and wireless should be enough not to affect the speed otherwise the kit needs upgrading, in most cases it is not a problem.
Maybe, with broadband speeds now exceeding 100mb it would make sense to buy gigabit if buying new, especially if you do internal streaming as well between say a NAS and desktop while multiple other people are accessing the internet.
Definitely agree that if you have 100M broadband broadband then you should get a gigabit switch. Most people don't have that though or require high speed networking, I don't know what speed broadband most people have though I suspect most have below 20M.
Obviously if there's any doubt then it makes sense to go gigabit as they are not that much more expensive. On the other hand since switches are so cheap there's not much to be gained by future proofing and it's certainly not worth replacing fast with gigabit unless you have the definite need.
generally how i describe is how it works. in the scenario i described. there are effectively two things connected to the router and so the bandwidth is shared. the two things being the switch and the wireless access point.
No there are however many things are connected. If there are 1 devices on the wireless and 5 on the wired then that makes 6 altogether each with their own IP address.
For downloads the ISP decides what order to send IP messages down to the modem/router, the router has nothing to do with this. This will for most people be the main decision assuming they are watching video etc (different would be file sharing). The ISP will pass them in order received as it will not know the final destination.
If the required upstream rate is less than the upstream rate of the broadband then the router will send all regardless. This would usually be the case as although the upstream is slower most activity such as watching video is downstream.
If the required upstream rate is higher than the broadband can cope with then the router has to decide which to give priority to. Why do you say that it will give 50% to the one device on the wireless and 10% each to the wired devices? I've never written any software for a consumer router but I can't understand why those who do would have such a crazy scheme.
irrespective of the logic that is not how it works. unless the router has QoS or something proprietary along the same lines, for bandwidth allocation it sees the WAP as being one client attached to it's switch. if the only other thing attached to it's switch(#1) is another switch(#2) then for bandwidth allocation, regardless of the number of things attached to switch(#2) the router's switch(#1) only has two things attached to it and that is how it portions bandwidth to the extent that it is up to it, and obviously only when the network is over capacity.
we're talking about unmanaged domestic units. it's not normally a problem. that is what post 3 was referring to.
What you've said doesn't make any sense.
For messages destined for the devices the router will just queue them up to either wireless or wired (usually it can just send), there is no decision to make. (It could for example decide between device A on wireless and device B on wireless but that wouldn't affect the wired and vice versa).
The only time there is a decision for the router to make is for LAN to internet messages (upstream only) where the required bandwidth is greater than the actual bandwidth, an example of this could be file sharing. In this case messages arrive at the router to go down the cable to the ISP, you are saying that the router will make 2 queues according to where the message came from (wireless or wired) and take alternate messages from each in turn from each queue - why would it do this?
It does make sense you just don't understand it.
internet upstream is irrelevant. it's network bandwidth.
in the even that the network is over capacity the router has to decide how to prioritise bandwidth. if your router/modem has 4 ports there is effectively a 5th port on the switch that goes to the wireless access point...
...and the bandwidth is prioritised such that equal weight is given to those 5 ports. regardless of how many devices are subsequently connected to them, including the wifi. that's the model. the implications of it are discussed above.
You clearly don't understand how the networking works.
The router will send any messages required over the particular link (Ethernet or wireless). If there is a message to be sent on Ethernet port 1 it will send it at the same time as sending other messages on Ethernet Port 2-4 and the wireless link. It doesn't need to prioritise the bandwidth, the only time it needs to do that is where it needs to send several messages over one link such as upstream on the broadband or if there are several messages to go to the say the wireless and it cannot keep up then it will also queue those.
Don't try and change the discussion the point was in reply to this post.
That post didn't and still doesn't make any sense to me, you however claimed it did so please explain. Actually having the separate switch there will actually improve the bandwidth for networking between devices on the switch as the router won't even need to be involved so if you have a need for a high speed connection such as an Ethernet hard disk it makes sense to put that and the PC on the same switch if you can.
bobcar you do not understand how it works. i do and am trying to explain it to you. this would be the most ridiculous thing i have ever go into an argument about. what John_Patrick said above was correct, i have been trying to explain to you why. if you can't get your head around it that would seem to be more your problem than mine. i don't care what you think. by all means think you are right.
Same principal applies to wireless except that the interface is both slower and runs at half-duplex so will be notably crapper if you put too many devices onto it. Despite what all the marketing stuff says, wireless is crap and not suitable for anything more than mobile devices and the odd laptop.
If OP is blessed with a fast broadband connection (100mb+) , does any video streaming over the internal network, or owns a NAS then it would be worth them taking a minute to think about how everything is connected up for best performance. If none of the above applies then he/she can probably just plug it all in and not notice any issues. Either way it will be a lot faster and stable than wireless.
Indeed that is correct but has nothing to do with "the router taking 50% of the bandwidth" whatever that means. The wireless being there does not affect anything except for any actual traffic devices on that network produce.
If there are 5 devices on that switch and the throughput was likely to be a problem then a gigabit switch should be used as they aren't that much more expensive (obviously the router has to have gigabit ports).
Strange that considering I've actually written software for routers, it's really lucky they work:eek:. My router software is for devices of which the router functionality is but a part of the whole device but I have written the software in total from driving the Ethernet chip direct up through the whole of the IP stack and including many application protocols - in short it's pretty much what I do for a living. I've never had anything to do with wireless so my knowledge there is very sketchy to say the least but that doesn't alter the principles involved and I would say that my router(s) does not contain all the functionality of a consumer router but it does the basics including NAT.