FREE: 5 port Switch, BNIB

No offense, but this is a switch, not a router. It says so on the box.

I'm autistic, and so detail oriented, so don't take offence, but I'm going to explain some of the differences between the two.

Among other things, I worked as a trouble shooter on a regional ISP before it was bought up by a national ISP in 2003.

A router can act like a switch, but in addition acts as a bridge between two different networks, allowing them to communicate, without becoming a single network. Like the Internet and your personal home network. Quite often routers come equipped with both an internal modem, and WiFi. Otherwise the modem plugs into a special port on the router, while the WiFi just plugs into one of the regular ports on the router.

A router does several things that a switch cannot. It hands out IP addresses to devices on your home or business network. It also performs some basic firewall duties, protecting your network from attacks coming from the Internet.

If you use a switch in place of a router, and it works at all, your ISP will be handing out actual Internet addresses to every device on your home network. As real Internet addresses are a limited resource that your ISP must pay for, they're going to charge you for every single one they give you. Plus, you make every single device on your network viable on, and subject to, direct attack from, the Internet. Generally a very bad idea.

Just FYI. ^_^

Happy to help! ^_^

Also glad you're not one of the thin skinned who think being told something is offensive.