Hello all.
I just had my house wallfished every which way with cat5e cable, and now have 7 ethernet jacks strewn throughout the house. Now I need to connect these jacks to the world, and here's where I'm getting a bit confused.
Right now I have a basic Linksys wireless g router running, with the usual rudimentary hardware firewall capabilities. Unfortunately it only has four wired port available. It would appear that the following possibilities for proceeding are as follows:
1. Keep the Linksys wireless in place, and add an unmanaged switch to one of the wired ports to get up to 7 wired ports. Pro - cheaper, all ethernet stays behind some kind of hardware firewall, and I keep my current wireless solution in place. Con - some kind of speed hit on the switched lines?
2. Connect a 8-port wired switch directly to the cable modem, and attach the wireless router at one of the endpoints. Pro - keep wireless solution in place, and potentially make use of a Gigabit switch. Con - no hardware firewall for the wired lines? Or does this really matter anymore with Windows built-in firewall, etc?
3. Buy a 8-port router / switch with wireless built-in. I can only really see two possibilities for home use here: DLINK DIR-632 and the Netgear FVG318. I'm not sure about DLink products in general, and the Netgear box gets terrible reviews online. So what to do?
Any ideas, assembled internet masses?
I just had my house wallfished every which way with cat5e cable, and now have 7 ethernet jacks strewn throughout the house. Now I need to connect these jacks to the world, and here's where I'm getting a bit confused.
Right now I have a basic Linksys wireless g router running, with the usual rudimentary hardware firewall capabilities. Unfortunately it only has four wired port available. It would appear that the following possibilities for proceeding are as follows:
1. Keep the Linksys wireless in place, and add an unmanaged switch to one of the wired ports to get up to 7 wired ports. Pro - cheaper, all ethernet stays behind some kind of hardware firewall, and I keep my current wireless solution in place. Con - some kind of speed hit on the switched lines?
2. Connect a 8-port wired switch directly to the cable modem, and attach the wireless router at one of the endpoints. Pro - keep wireless solution in place, and potentially make use of a Gigabit switch. Con - no hardware firewall for the wired lines? Or does this really matter anymore with Windows built-in firewall, etc?
3. Buy a 8-port router / switch with wireless built-in. I can only really see two possibilities for home use here: DLINK DIR-632 and the Netgear FVG318. I'm not sure about DLink products in general, and the Netgear box gets terrible reviews online. So what to do?
Any ideas, assembled internet masses?
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