Help with router issue

Get a 16-port switch. No need for a router. You may need a crossover cable to connect the router to the switch, but first try with a normal patch cable.

The DSL router will allow up to 254 i.p. addresses.

You would want a switch, not a hub linked into your router.

Switch = Equal bandwidth across the board.
Hub = Maximium allowed badwidth which is shared

Yes, a 16 port switch will do you just fine. An unmanaged switch will only cost you 100-200 dollars. Cisco make the best ones - most expensive, but there are many others out there.

If you need a cost effective one, goto www.newegg.com if you have 3 days to wait for delivery.

Good luck.

The answer to your question is yes, and why.

You can place a router on the inside of the DSL router, place a route statement to the second router and route to multiple internal subnets. It does not sound like this is your situation however.

I agree with the previous answer, you need to tap into the DSL router with a switch or a hub. This will require a crossover cable, (easily made) or an uplink port on the switch or hub.

A good solution would be a Cisco 300 Series Fasthub, or a Catalyst switch with the number of ports you require. On a small network, the difference between the switch and hub is negligable, however for informational purposes, here is the difference.

A hub, which is a Layer One device, will pass all traffic to all ports, creating one large collision domain. This means that all computers will see all traffic at that passes through the hub, and the individual NIC's on the computers will decide which layer 2 frames are bound for them. They will discard others. This can lead to slower PC performance, more collisions, and on a large network can result in network anomolies.
Additionaly, as the earlier answer stated, the bandwidth is shared between all ports.

A switch isolates collisions to indiviual segments, by storing individually attached MAC addresses in what is called a CAM table. This way when an Ethernet frame is destined for a a particular hosts MAC, the switch passes the frame based on information stored in the CAM table. This way all systems do not have to examine all packets. The switch will however pass Broadcast traffic and Multi-cast traffic, therefore creating what is referred to as a "broadcast" domain.

Either will work. Depending on your needs a switch is inherintly faster, but the hub is usally cheaper.

Hope this helps

Chris Weber CCDP

The answer to your question is yes, and why.

You can place a router on the inside of the DSL router, place a route statement to the second router and route to multiple internal subnets. It does not sound like this is your situation however.

I agree with the previous answer, you need to tap into the DSL router with a switch or a hub. This will require a crossover cable, (easily made) or an uplink port on the switch or hub.

A good solution would be a Cisco 300 Series Fasthub, or a Catalyst switch with the number of ports you require. On a small network, the difference between the switch and hub is negligable, however for informational purposes, here is the difference.

A hub, which is a Layer One device, will pass all traffic to all ports, creating one large collision domain. This means that all computers will see all traffic at that passes through the hub, and the individual NIC's on the computers will decide which layer 2 frames are bound for them. They will discard others. This can lead to slower PC performance, more collisions, and on a large network can result in network anomolies.
Additionaly, as the earlier answer stated, the bandwidth is shared between all ports.

A switch isolates collisions to indiviual segments, by storing individually attached MAC addresses in what is called a CAM table. This way when an Ethernet frame is destined for a a particular hosts MAC, the switch passes the frame based on information stored in the CAM table. This way all systems do not have to examine all packets. The switch will however pass Broadcast traffic and Multi-cast traffic, therefore creating what is referred to as a "broadcast" domain.

Either will work. Depending on your needs a switch is inherintly faster, but the hub is usally cheaper.

Hope this helps

Chris Weber CCDP

As stated before, best off using a Layer-2 switch. Note that using a Layer-3 switch (e.g. Catalyst 3550 or similar) allows you to route between subnets in the way you describe but at much higher speed than with a small router. One other point - if the only purpose of your network is to send traffic to or from your Internet link, then a good old 10 Mb/S hub will provide equal performance to a whizz-bang 10/100/1000 switch - the link to your ISP is the limiting factor!

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