Confusing networking

MojangYang · January 9, 2019

Hi guys, I’m looking at our office network system in China and was more confused by it than I was.

what is the difference between routers and modems? Are they the same thing as I thought or are they two different things build into one device?

also in Australia we used to use those slightly older routers that connects to the telephone port. Now we have one of those routers that connects to to the look-like-Ethernet-port-but-I-don’t-think-it-is port (the other end of the looks-like-Ethernet port is connected to a nbn box in the garage that is also connected to a fibre-optic cable). Can somebody tell me what is that port?

now back to the office...

the place has 3 routers which is weird. I saw something similar to the one in Australia.

On top of a shelf, the “router” on the left has a looks-like-Ethernet-port connected to that thing on the right. The thing on the right has 4 looks-like-Ethernet-ports, a phone port, and is connected to fibre optics. I assume the thing is similar to the nbn box, but it also looks like a router. So I plugged my laptop into one of the ports on it but got nothing so I think it is not Ethernet. Can somebody explain what is that thing on the right?

sorry for writting too much! Long question XD and thx for reading it. The pictures are not uploading properly so I can’t show them to you guys.

LukeSavenije · January 9, 2019

NelizMastr · January 9, 2019

Modems and routers are different in the sense that a modem is used to modulate and demodulate (hence the name) a signal, like an analog phone line or DSL. A router is a device meant to route traffic from one source to another, like from a PC to the internet. These days, modems and routers are integrated into a single appliance that often also has firewalling built-in. Those other boxes might very well be firewalls, PoE switches etc. rather than just routers.

17 minutes ago, MojangYang said:

Now we have one of those routers that connects to to the look-like-Ethernet-port-but-I-don’t-think-it-is port (the other end of the looks-like-Ethernet port is connected to a nbn box in the garage that is also connected to a fibre-optic cable). Can somebody tell me what is that port?

Sounds like SFP+

Modules for fiber optic look like this:

Is that it?