Internet Solution for Basement? Help

OneSaltyDog · December 17, 2016

I am finishing my basement with walls and everything soon, and I am going to be having lan parties down there as well as using my xbox on my tv, and I had

a question about networking switches and routers as I am a noob. So I have an ethernet cable running from my router upstairs down to the corner in the basement where my lan party desk will be,

but I only have 1 ethernet cable. Now I have read that I can buy a network switch and convert the 1 cable into 5 ports without limiting and internet speed, correct? But I also want to make

sure I have good wifi down there for my friends and I's phones, so I was wondering if I could just buy a second router, plug an ethernet from my upstairs router into my new router downstairs,

and use that as a access point for like 3 computers, and also as a wifi range extender?

Thank you for any help

Skiiwee29 · December 17, 2016

4 minutes ago, OneSaltyDog said:

I am finishing my basement with walls and everything soon, and I am going to be having lan parties down there as well as using my xbox on my tv, and I had

a question about networking switches and routers as I am a noob. So I have an ethernet cable running from my router upstairs down to the corner in the basement where my lan party desk will be,

but I only have 1 ethernet cable. Now I have read that I can buy a network switch and convert the 1 cable into 5 ports without limiting and internet speed, correct? But I also want to make

sure I have good wifi down there for my friends and I's phones, so I was wondering if I could just buy a second router, plug an ethernet from my upstairs router into my new router downstairs,

and use that as a access point for like 3 computers, and also as a wifi range extender?

Thank you for any help

Correct, as long as the switch is a Layer 2 device only and has no layer 3 (Routing) capabilities at all, this will work just fine. I personally have my Netgear R7000 router hooked into my modem and have a "dummy" 8 port Netgear switch hooked into that. The switch will send traffic to the Router to route all data and for it to provide DHCP leases to the devices connected into your switch. Something like this would be perfect. Its near the same, if not the same, dummy switch that I have.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=12K-008X-00026&cm_re=netgear_switch-_-12K-008X-00026-_-Product