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Low Cost Routers with 100Mbps WAN Ports?

Posted by Cliff on from the who-uses-10Mbps-anymore? dept.

Ed asks: "I am getting ready to move into a dorm at Kent State, and they have a 100Mbps port in the room. They allow routers, and switches to connect more than 1 PC, however every router I see at the consumer level has a 10Mbps WAN port. I would really prefer not to waste having a 100BaseTX port on a 10Mbps router. Does anyone make a semi-low cost router with a 100Mbps WAN port?"

2 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Build it yourself by strudeau · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Build it yourself out of an old box you (or a friend) have lying around. Buy two $10 10/100 cards and a cheap 10/100 switch. Besides, it's more fun that way and you might learn something.

  2. Why not use only a switch? by Papineau · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If they'll allow you to use a switch, why spend some more money and buy a router? These things are usually used when either you're not supposed to hook more than one computer, or when only one computer can't be connected directly to the Internet because of some authentication mechanism (PPPoE, DHCP w/ only 1 address per port, etc.)

    If they allow you to grab more than one IP address, and the network is either fixed address or DHCP, go with a switch. A 100Mbps switch will set you back around 40$.

    Or use one of your computer as a bridge (NAT) before the switch. But then you'll have to open it anytime you want one of the other ones to go online, unless you let it on all the time as I do... and some protocols still don't like NATted computers.