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What's the difference between a router and a switch

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  • 15-06-2014 10:54pm
    #1
    danger_mouse_tm
    Registered Users Posts: 992 ✭✭✭


    Hi,

    Up until now I've really only worked with broadband home routers and to me the basic principle is to distribute a broadband connection across multiple devices.
    I've never had really much use or experience with hubs as I was under the opinion that they couldn't assign an ip address (DHCP) from a WAN cable to the other ports as they had no administrator interface.

    Last week I was asked by a friend to look at his broadband connection in his office. He's using Rapid broadband as his office is in a rural area beyond the reach of fixed line broadband. He had no internet connection in his office. The system consisted of a directional antenna on the side of his warehouse pointing towards Rapid broadband's transmitter and a cat 5 cable coming from that into small POE supply box and another cable going directly into an 8 port hub. All the other computers on the site were also connected to this hub including a wireless transmitter going to his home (150 feet away) being picked up by a matching receiver and connected directly to a TP link router. I only discovered the router by accident because I entered the Network address 192.168.1.1 into his office computer and up came the web interface that I'm familiar with (I was trying to access his hub!).
    After disconnecting the line going to the broadband receiver for a few minutes, his broadband magically returned (rapid broadband's support had told him the problem was an out of date anti virus definition on his home pc!).
    So I guess what i'm asking is there a similarity between how the routers work and the switches? And what hadware should one use if there was an adsl modem that had to be connected to more than four ethernet based computers?


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    #2
    same ol sh1te
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,837 ✭✭✭same ol sh1te


    danger_mouse_tm wrote: »
    Hi,

    Up until now I've really only worked with broadband home routers and to me the basic principle is to distribute a broadband connection across multiple devices.
    I've never had really much use or experience with hubs as I was under the opinion that they couldn't assign an ip address (DHCP) from a WAN cable to the other ports as they had no administrator interface.

    Last week I was asked by a friend to look at his broadband connection in his office. He's using Rapid broadband as his office is in a rural area beyond the reach of fixed line broadband. He had no internet connection in his office. The system consisted of a directional antenna on the side of his warehouse pointing towards Rapid broadband's transmitter and a cat 5 cable coming from that into small POE supply box and another cable going directly into an 8 port hub. All the other computers on the site were also connected to this hub including a wireless transmitter going to his home (150 feet away) being picked up by a matching receiver and connected directly to a TP link router. I only discovered the router by accident because I entered the Network address 192.168.1.1 into his office computer and up came the web interface that I'm familiar with (I was trying to access his hub!).
    After disconnecting the line going to the broadband receiver for a few minutes, his broadband magically returned (rapid broadband's support had told him the problem was an out of date anti virus definition on his home pc!).
    So I guess what i'm asking is there a similarity between how the routers work and the switches? And what hadware should one use if there was an adsl modem that had to be connected to more than four ethernet based computers?

    Simply switches work at layer 2 (mac address) routers at layer 3 (ip address). Switches create a network. Routers connect networks
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_link_layer
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_layer

    You only want one router (your gateway to the internet and firewall), to extend your network you use a switch.

    Note, I'm giving you the basics here, your standard residential router is also a switch and there is such a thing as layer 3 switches, but that's for another day


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