Hi all,
from the quick glance and google search, I understand that this is not a conventional way to connect the WAN or set up your network. However, ISP modem is at the entrance of my flat and my router is in the living room. Most of the rooms have LAN sockets which come from the entrance electrical box where ISP modem is located. Currently, none of the wall sockets is connected, there is only connected coming from ISP modem to the living's rooms LAN socked to which router is connected.
My question is: is it possible in any way to connect all LAN sockets and ISP modem to the switch? Or should I add a switch in the living room, but then the setup would be the same:
ISP modem at the entrance -> connected with Living's room LAN socket -> Living's room LAN socket to Switch -> to Router.
Assuming your router does the handling of connection credentials (password/username) all internal machines should sit behind the router, so you would need something like:
(1) MODEM <--> ROUTER <--> SWITCH (<--> all other LAN sockets)
If you put the switch in front of the router and also connect other machines to the switch, the router will not be your gateway anymore and all computers will need to handle their credentials individually (and you ISP will need to permit such a mode to begin with).
UNLESS, you use a manageable switch like:
(2) MODEM <--> manageable SWITCH (<--> all other LAN sockets physically) <--> ROUTER <--> (<--> all other LAN sockets logically via VLAN )
Using different VLANs for the different ports will allow you to virtually implement the model (1) logical connections with the model (2) physical wiring.
Whether you want to do that or not, is a policy decision you need to make
If there are two ethernet cables from the "entrance electrical box (EEB)" to the "living room (LR)" you could also implement model (1) with the switch placed in the EEB.
Funny thing that previous owner have this worked out somehow. He left the switch in the electrical box, the model is zyxel es-105a.
Pretty sure that this one is not a manageable swtich.
Previous owner may have also had his router in the distribution box, allowing it to have a direct connection to the modem. Or the modem acts as a router.
If there's only one cable to where you want to have the router, the conventional, certain to work method involves a managed switch in the box and run VLANs on the cable to / from the router.
You do not need to add another router in the electrical box, just a managed switch that can do VLANs will be enough. Or, if the modem can connect to the router using VLANs (many ISPs require this), then you will probably not need anything.
The ES-105A is a 10/100 "Fast Ethernet" switch. If your Internet service is faster than 100 Mb you would not want to use it, 100 Mb links will be a bottleneck.
