Ethernet Splitter

From Dave’s link, I have the plastic 5 port housing one and it works perfectly fine as well (it links my TV box, Pi, Apple TV to my router – so that’s 4 ports of the 5 used so far) and it works fine with all three devices running.

An Ethernet splitter should work. A hub is the same thing. Just won’t do any packet switching.

No it isn’t a hub.

The splitter is passive just taking 8 wires and turning them into 24 at the other end. A hub is an active device. It is aware of physical layer packets, that is it can detect their start (preamble), an idle line (interpacket gap) and sense a collision which it also propagates by sending a jam signal. The device that sent the packets involved in the collision then knows to resend them. They can also detect physical problems such as jabbering.

Also hubs don’t switch packets, switches do that. A hub just sends all packets out on all ports (except the one it was received on). That’s why switches have memory and hubs don’t. The switch has to keep a table of which device(s) are on what port to know where to switch a packet to.

John, it’s on it’s way.

Dave .Yep a hub is just a wire splitter. No switching. Every packet goes to all ports. If you can get the book i recommended have a look ?

Base band T works the same as coax backbone. All packets everyware.

Trust me, you won’t get past 2 devices without a hub or switch when you’re using UTP cables. Even a hub limits you.

I was Network Manager for Royal Mail South Wales & South West for a number of years and still make my living with business networking.

I started in the days of thick Ethernet backbones that looked something like this. The transceivers had great long spikes.

Once we got past 70 / 80 PCs it was out with the thick and in with the first switch. That was considered a major project as switches were the new black magic boxes that needed some sort of esoteric skills. We know now that was all bollocks ?

I have two TP-Link TL-SG 105’s:

http://tinyurl.com/y95s6adx

One connects my TP Link N600 9980 Router to the desktop in this room across the loft and the Zyxel nsa310 NAS also in here.

I am planning to use the other to connect a NOWTV box to my TV and the Humax Freesat box, also eventually a laptop which will allow me to record my vinyl collection from the iON record deck. I love TP-Link stuff!

BL’s advice should be heeded:  ” Bear in mind that with a 5 port you are only gaining 3 ports net. One port on the sky router and one on the switch are taken up interconnecting the two – so with a 5 port switch you would go from two usable ports to five – for me an eight port makes a lot more sense if not for today then tomorrow. ”

I have just the NAS and desktop connected in this room, but I sometimes connect SWMBO’s lappy to the Hub. That’s it, no ports for anything else, but I don’t need any more here.

I tried to think of cases where a splitter would be of use and I failed completely. I am not even sure that anyone sells hubs any more now that small switches are so much better in all ways, yet still highly cost effective. Amazon is listing switches from less than £7 and as far as I could see, no Ethernet hubs, though many USB hubs, they are not the same thing.

Ebay had this interesting write up http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Ethernet-Hubs-Vs-Network-Switches-/10000000177629216/g.html 

I have an 8 port 100Mbps switch in the lounge it is over kill since I am only using 5 ports at the moment, but it was thrown spare when I replaced it with a 9 port Gigabyte switch up stairs . There is also a dumb hub serving some printers there. A displaced old router is also used as a Wi-Fi extender as the house walls are not Wi-Fi friendly and the router was spare. Subject to checking the wiring layout the hub could possibly be replaced by ports on the down graded router-to-a-plain-switch (DHCP is turned off and no WAN connection).

In the office the ‘live’ router has 4 Gigabyte ports, one is connected to a five port Gigabyte switch so out of the 9 total ports only 7 became useful only 1 is currently spare.

If I was starting over now, the network would be very different, needs have changed, hardware has advanced and in many cases become cheaper and more capable, for example the old hub was originally the centre of the upstairs network 20 years ago and cost considerably more than a modern switch.