Home Network Setup Question, Switch with AP

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badseed

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Hi guys

Hope someone can give me some advice please. I'm not an expert on hardware.

I have a Fibre Router in an outside building with a utp cable running from one port, through waterproof conduit into the ceiling and into the house. I need to connect that cable to a switch, so that I can run 2 utp cables to 2 devices - I want them wired, not wireless. But I also need a Wifi access point - can I connect the Wifi AP to the switch with a utp cable? Will it detect the Fibre Router network in the out building allowing me to extend the WiFi signal in the house? Sorry, this must seem like a dumb question :-)

Or do you get a switch that also acts as a WiFi AP or repeater?

Thx!
 
Don't go for all in one units, rather get a separate AP and a separate switch, that way you don't have to replace an expensive all in one unit, but rather which ever fails first, or which ever needs to be upgraded first. If its really a must, Mikrotik and Ubiquiti make routers with wifi which you should be able to configure as a Switch with Wifi.
 
Genisys said:
Don't go for all in one units, rather get a separate AP and a separate switch, that way you don't have to replace an expensive all in one unit, but rather which ever fails first, or which ever needs to be upgraded first. If its really a must, Mikrotik and Ubiquiti make routers with wifi which you should be able to configure as a Switch with Wifi.
Click to expand...

Thanks Genisys - So i can connect an AP to a switch? It will detect the main router that the switch is connected to?

Any recommendation of the model to buy?
 
Hi Daneza - thanks for the advice, that looks great, good price too. So with the Tenda 5 port, I must still buy an AP to connect to it, right?
 
badseed said:
Hi Daneza - thanks for the advice, that looks great, good price too. So with the Tenda 5 port, I must still buy an AP to connect to it, right?
Click to expand...
No problem. Yes, so the 5 port switch will only handle wired traffic from the fibre router to multiple points. It has no WiFi capability.

A switch is basically just a dumb traffic flowing device. It can only send data traffic to its intended location.

A router can do that and more. It has extra processing and manipulation capability.

To get WiFi in another location you need to buy an access point like the one you linked, and connect it to the switch. It has options built in for how you can configure it to function. But in your case it's best to set it's 'WAN' (internet access) details as 'bridge' (so that it automatically hands all management off to the fibre router and only acts as a WiFi entry point - this is better), or 'DHCP' (so that it handles management of whatever connects to it, but gets internet access upstream from the fibre router).
 
Thanks again! Starting to make sense :-) Although Ubiquiti's cube seems very cool. It seems to have a WAN port to create the AP as well as two ports for wired devices.
 
Awesome! Yeah, Ubiquiti makes amazing products. It's nice and small too. You're right, you could leave out the switch if you don't need more than 2 ports. :D
 
I would agree with the advise you have gotten here. Separate switch and AP is a good idea so you don't have to replace everything if something breaks.
 
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