>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>If you buy a switch - buy one with a least 8 ports -
>>>>>>>You have to use a port from your router to connect to the switch
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The ports of the switch
>>>>>>>(1) connects to the router
>>>>>>>(2) the PC that was connected to the router
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>So, 2 ports (out of 8 ) already used
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Thank you for the suggestion. Although I am leaning toward buying a router instead of a switch; as I mentioned to Sergey, mostly because of wireless capabilities.
>>>>>
>>>>>Of course wireless also introduces some potential security headaches. If not locked down properly at best you'll start having people "leeching" (i.e. hooking into your network to get "free" Internet), or worse (snooping around in your network and doing stuff).
>>>>
>>>>True. I will, of course, enable the security feature of the router.
>>>One other thing you'll have to remember -- wireless access points tend to have a DHCP server. This will generally cause problems with any existing DHCP server (a friend of mine told me a story where they had such an inciident at where he works -- one of the employees had plugged in a wireless access point from home so he could use his notebook on the corporate network. As a result, it caused a network outage in sections of the network for several minutes until the source of the problem could be tracked down.).
>>
>>Thank you for this point.
>
>Switches keep track of what device is on which port so frames only go to a single port. A switch also allocates all of a 10/100mbs to each port so your connections get the full bandwidth on their segment. Routers on the other hand route packets from one network to another. In your case, it is routing packets from all machines on every port out the wan port to the internet. However, today, most broadband routers include a 4 - 8 port Ethernet switch (or hub) and a Network Address Translator and many include a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, Domain Name Service (DNS) proxy server and a hardware firewall. Depending on the make/model of your broadband router of course. Today, every broadband router has a WAN Port that connects to a DSL or cable modem for broadband Internet service and the integrated switch (to create the LAN). Most likely that is what you have now but you are limited to wired only and then only 4 ports (based on what you wrote). In many cases you can piggy back or expand, but it depends on your make/model of router you are using now. It may make more sense to go with an upgrade on your broadband router to get wireless as well (you'll want a full management one) and more ports and/or the print server or a combination of your existing, a cross-over cable and an additional switch (as others mentioned). A small Cisco firewall can handle all of the security you will need.
>
>I recommend you contact a network manager who can really give you the low-down on the most cost effective way to meet your requirements. You can contact Netgear and other companies. It costs nothing for them to make recommendations ... just make sure you constantly reiterate "small business" and stay away from the "one day you might need 24 ports..." sales pitch. :o)

Thank you very much. Very helpful information.