Char Jackson wrote:
On Mon, 01 Jan 2018 21:37:00 -0500, Paul wrote:

You can buy single port routers, such as the BEFSR41 years ago.
It had one WAN port and one LAN port.

You're thinking of the BEFSR11 ;-)
The BEFSR41 had a WAN port and 4 LAN ports. (The clue is in the model
number, 11 versus 41.)

I used to own examples of both.

When I had the BEFSR11, I connected an Ethernet switch to the LAN port
so that I could connect all of the PCs. Actually, though the BEFSR11 and
41 are long gone, to this day I always connect an Ethernet switch to a
LAN port and all of the PCs connect to the switch. That way the LAN
stays up when the router has to be rebooted.


I was rebooting my router once or twice an evening.
Once of the finest electronics purchases I've ever made...

After a number of attempts to fix it by applying the
next release of firmware, it bricked. I expect that
was the only update that really "settled things".
It was stable after that (sitting in its cardboard box,
waiting for hell to freeze over).

Paul