Incorporate Ethernet connections into your home network setup.
Incorporate Ethernet connections into your home network setup.
Currently my modem from the internet service has four Ethernet ports, but I need a few more. Others suggest using a switch. I understand plugging an Ethernet cable directly into the switch gives extra ports, but I want to ensure I choose the right one so all ports maintain the full 500Mb/s speed offered by my provider. Do you think connecting a switch to my modem will share the 500Mb/s properly across all eight ports, or is that incorrect? This is the switch I’m considering: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07P...ct_title_1. Additionally, I’m looking for products that support running Ethernet cables throughout the house, especially since the clips on the wires are too limited for my setup.
A gigabit switch is sufficient. Each connection can operate at maximum capacity; the bottleneck occurs only when several users download simultaneously, causing the shared bandwidth to be reduced as before.
A solid switch typically allows maximum data flow between any two devices at once. However, this isn't really important because the main limitation is the modem. Even if each device can connect at 500 Mbps to the modem, the overall internet speed remains shared among all machines.
The ISP restricts your speed to 500mbit, which is divided among all ports and connected devices on the modem.
it makes sense now. i thought i had 500 megabits per port at full speed, but actually i have only 500 megabytes shared among the ports. my bill lists megabytes in capital letters, so i’m guessing it should be checked. since i’m not very familiar with networking, i plan to test by connecting the switch first and then comparing the performance from 4 ports sharing 500MB/s to 10 ports sharing the same speed.
Internet speed is measured in Megabits. It’s unclear why your bill displays MB in uppercase letters. 500 Mbps is available on every device. Think of it from your modem to your ISP as having 500 Mbps. Therefore, all ten devices will need to share that 500 Mbps. It shouldn’t be a big problem.
Sorry, went to bed, but I see it's already been answered. Just to add a small bit of extra info: The modem's internal ports are likely capable of 1 Gbps, but from the outside (ISP to modem) you'll never receive more than ~500 Mbps total (could be slightly more, e.g. I pay for 1 Gbps but modem actually reports 1.13 Gbps) It's important to note that the bandwidth is up to 500 Mbps. The bandwidth you get will also depend on the server(s) you're downloading from. If a server only delivers (for example) 100 Mbps, that's all you'll get, and there's still 400 Mbps "left over" for other parallel downloads. If multiple devices are downloading at the same time, those 500 Mbps of total bandwidth aren't necessarily distributed evenly. So you could see one downloading at 300 Mbps and another at only 50 Mbps. Browsers will typically report speed in MB/s. So in that case you'd see (300 / 8 =) 37,5 MB/s and 6.25 MB/s.