On 29 Jan, 00:31, gecko <al...@olympus.net> wrote:
> I notice that Switches and Routers are being marketed to do what looks
> like pretty much the same thing. *What is the difference? *Why would
> one choose one over the other?
>
> Thanks
>
> Gecko

where are they marketted to do what looks like the same thing?

the things on sale tend to be either Switches and a switch alone will
not connect you to the internet. I have a switch, (for "ethernet",
wired internet) , it just has RJ45 sockets, the 8 pin sockets for cat5
network cables.
There is no Telephone/RJ11 socket.

The things sold as routers, with many RJ45 sockets, have a switch
built in. And most of these things sold as Routers, also have an
RJ11(telephone socket), because they have a modem built in. These
things with the many RJ45 sockets do NAT too. One might call them NAT
Routers. They are sold to the consumer market, users, techies,
businesses. I think you can turn the NAT off usually or sometimes, if
you wanted to.

Techies and some businesses may get "proper" routers.. e.g. Cisco
ones. Which prob don't do NAT. They may also turn their computer
into a whatever - router, switch , modem, network firewall, "e.t.c."