Wired Router or a Hub

[Ptex94]

I have a wireless router that provides broadband internet access via my cable provider to a computer and a tivo. I don't want wireless signals in my house because of their potential link to cancer and am looking to replace my set-up with something wired. If I could plug both ethernet cables (one from the computer and one from the tivo) in my cable modem, I would. That got me thinking that maybe they sell an adapter that will turn one ethernet port into two or four. The man at radio shack said there is, but it will hurt my connection speed. He recommended a wired router. He told me a switch would hurt my connection speed too. After a little research, I learned there are also devices called hubs. My question is which would be better, a wired router or hub, is either one better than the other regarding connection speed, and will either one sent harmful wireless signals?

[Law]

Routers and hub do different things, you won't be able to share an Internet connection with a hub unless you can get more than 1 public IP address from your ISP, which requires you to spend more money, which is unnecessary when you can get a wired router and share that single Internet connection. Wired routers don't admit wireless signals. Only wireless routers and access point. A wireless routers is just a wired router with an access point build in for wireless connectivity.

You aren't safe, wireless signals are all around you. Your microwave, cellular phone, things from your neighbors. What are you afraid of, you're already expose to much of these things anyways.

[penfold]

A switch is faster than a hub or a router.

Does your wireless router have ports in the back? If so, you can turn off the wireless part and use it with wires.

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Originally posted by Ptex94
I have a wireless router that provides broadband internet access via my cable provider to a computer and a tivo.

Why not just disable the wireless portion of the router in the configuration settings? It would be cheaper and less of a pain than having to buy a new one, connect it and re-configure it.

I don't want wireless signals in my house because of their potential link to cancer

Was this just being sarcastic, because you don't want others to leech off of the wireless signal and steal your bandwidth, or are you actually serious?

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

[Ptex94]

I'm getting conflicting stories from penfold and the guy at radio shack. Radio shack claims routers are faster than switches. I am wondering if maybe what you said was a typo of sorts. It is possible though, that radio shack wanted me to by the router over the switch because the router was $20 more.

My wireless router has ports in the back. I like the idea of disabling the wifi on the router. I have a mac and I played around in the network system preferences, but couldn't really decipher the settings. Are the settings to turn off the wifi in the network system preferences on the computer or are they in the software that came with the router. I don't have any software that came with the router because it was a second hand gift. Maybe I'll check Linksys's website for software downloads.

To Ethereal_Dragon regarding wifi and cancer: Some say radiation is no big deal; it's all around us. Others disagree saying we don't know what the effects of all this technology will be. At home, we don't own microwaves, cordless phones, cell phones, etc. Why take the risk?

[Ethereal_Dragon]

About the router vs switches part.... you router has a 4-port switch built in. that is what the 4 LAN ports are for. the router portion ROUTES the packets between the 2 networks, LAN & WAN... (LOCAL area network, WIDE area network <-- this would be your ISP.)

As far as configuring the rotuer, you do that through a 'web-interface'. Since you have a Linksys, it will be easier. Open up a browser window, and type 192.168.1.1 into the address bar, and you will get to the router's config portion.... From there, enter the default user / password (unless you changed it, then enter that). I believe that the default on my friends was only a password of admin. You can check on the Linksys homepage, and you can find more info there, OR, you can give us the model number, and we can look it up for you.....

As far as the link to cancer, I don't worry about such trivial things... There are wireless signals all around us, no matter what we keep out of our homes.... Radio frequencies, television frequencies, etc. etc. unless you live in an old missle silo, or have 6 foot thick lead walls on your house.

[Law]

Radioshack was wrong, switches are faster than routers.

Layer 2 gigabit switches, even fibre switches are use for backbone connection because of their efficiency, speed and throughput.

The router is a little slower because it has to do more.