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Is there such thing as an Ethernet output selector?

A

ahmadka

Senior member
I have two independent Internet connections at my home, and I also have a very detailed LAN setup in my home, spanning many floors, and network devices. The problem is sometimes one of the two internet connections goes down and I have to pull out a CAT6 cable from the router providing that faulty internet connection, and connect it to the other router (both routers are locations next to each other). This way, I'm able to restore internet connectivity in my home when on of the two internet connections goes down. However every time this is needed, I have to manually take out the wire and connect it to the other router. Is there a "switch" (not referring to the conventional term here) which lets me choose which router to connect an Ethernet cable to ? Something like the thing shown below (from the old RF signal days), but the other way around (i.e. think of the 'out' as the 'in', and think of the two 'in's as the output Ethernet cables going to each router). I can just flip the switch and my entire LAN switches to the other router.

JrBEI1a.jpg
 
You can get a router that supports dual WAN ports; they are generally more expensive than the standard home routers, since they are designed around businesses, but they have the ability to "fallover" immediately if one of the internet connections go down, like you are doing manually.

That's the way I'd be looking.
 
As I've recently (6 months ago) bought the new networking stuff which I'm utilizing right now, I'm inclined to not buy anything expensive for such a small requirement. Isn't there any simple switcher that I can use ? I don't mind having to manually switch over to the other router in case problems start - in fact I prefer switching over manually rather than automatically.
 
No, a dual WAN router is your only option for this. An RF coax switch is completely different than one that operates at the IP level and has to determine where to send traffic to. Most home user's really don't have a need for this and the added expense of a good dual WAN router really is alot compared to simply swapping the incoming WAN cable from one modem to another.

This type of thing is more found in businesses where downtime means loss of revenue, so good dual WAN router's are definitely more expensive. The cheapest I've seen is from ubiquiti networks but you also have to have a fair amount of networking and CLI background to get it to work correctly.
 
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