Router or Switch or Hub?

[crowndale]

I do some PC support work for a locally-based national charity, and have recently moved them to a new office which was cabled with cat5e. I've scrounged an 8 port hub, and now have their 6 PCs working happily together, one of which has a dial-up internet connection. The PCs are currently all Windows 98SE, and the network protocol is Microsoft NetBEUI.

My next project is to switch to Broadband (ADSL) and I need to know what hardware I need to buy; being a charity money is in short supply! I guess that I'll need an ADSL modem and router, possible combined, but will I still be able to use the hub with this or do I need to buy an 8 port router? I appreciate that I'll have to move from NetBEUI to TCP/IP. Any advice will be very much appreciated.

 

[Parcival21]

Hi there,
you should be able to use your hub for sure. The alternative would be to buy a router with an 8 port switch included. Don't buy an eight port router. That would be to expensive.
bye,
busche

 

[pt777]

Make sure your router is 'rated' 108 Mbytes (vs 56) (if you haven't bought it yet). The 20 extra bucks is worth the wireless file transfer speed (e.g., you may need to back up those charity photos).

 

[bcastner]

With ADSL there are no concerns about "'rated' 108 Mbytes (vs 56)" for a broadband router.

The broadband router will have an "Uplink" port to allow cascading additional switches or hubs. Or if does not (unlikely), you do the cascade with cross-thru cables rather than standard straight-thru drop cables.

 

[crowndale]

Thanks, folks, for the very helpful tips. I've now bought an ADSL modem/router with integrated 4 port 10/100Mbps switch. This doesn't have an uplink port, but the existing hub does (is that what you meant, bcastner?) so I assume that I'll just need a straight-thru cable to connect them.

Once the telephone line has been ADSL enabled then I'll connect the modem/router to my PC using one of the ports for configuration & testing. Once I'm happy with that I'll link in the existing hub and configure each of the other PCs in turn. Should be fun!