Overview/Introduction
This article will help students looking to expand the number of ports in their room by explaining what the Ursinus IT team recommends when looking to purchase a network switch.
Most dorm rooms are allotted a single network port. This is due to the growing prevalence of Wi-Fi adoption and the space requirements on our equipment rack for these physical connections. Unfortunately, we cannot expand the number of ports even if occupants of a room have more than one device they wish to connect physically to the network.
However, students are allowed to purchase a small network switch of their own in order to expand the number of connections available to that single port in their room. We have some recommended guidelines to follow so the correct network switch can be purchased.
What we recommend
When looking for a switch, we recommend making sure that no matter how many ports the switch may have, that they should all support gigabyte speeds. There are very few out there that don't have all their ports supporting gigabyte speeds, but sometimes a switch might only support gigabyte speeds on one or two ports and not across all of them. Therefore, make sure to read the description thoroughly before you make a purchase.
Also, make sure that the switch is an unmanaged switch, or a dumb switch as we like to call it. A managed switch, by contrast, will usually have extra bells and whistles like vlan assignment or a management software component to it. Do not purchase this type of switch because as soon as you try to plug it in, the port will be automatically disabled by our equipment.
NOTE: There will be no exceptions to allow a managed switch to connect to the Ursinus network.
Here is a cheap, but good Unmanaged Network Switch that we recommend to purchase for under $20.
Switches are allowed, but not a router?
We allow students to bring and connect unmanaged network switches because they should only be forwarding traffic through the network. However, this article will explain why we don't allow students to bring in and connect a wireless router to the Ursinus network.
Still Having Trouble?
If you are having trouble with your wired connection try these troubleshooting steps