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Can a router act as a switch?

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Question added by Bassam Ali Mohammed Al-mamari , مساعد الرصد والتقييم , برودحي سيستمز
Date Posted: 2016/02/01
Hussein Nagy
by Hussein Nagy , Sr. Technical Project Manager , Emircom LLC

Yes in some models you can add a switch module

Muhammad Mujtaba Shafique
by Muhammad Mujtaba Shafique , RJ , Dream Fm106

.Instead of spending $- to purchase a brand new switch of comparable build quality to your old Wi-Fi router, it makes financial sense (and is environmentally friendly) to invest five minutes of your time tweaking the settings on the old router to turn it from a Wi-Fi access point and routing tool into a network switch–perfect for dropping behind your entertainment center so that your DVR, Xbox, and media center computer can all share an Ethernet connection.

صلاح منصور مقبل عبدالخالق
by صلاح منصور مقبل عبدالخالق , مشرف , مدارس هاي تك

Switches work on layer 2, which uses MAC addresses to identify hosts. A switch can only move frames to another host on that switch. There is an assumption that when you send frames to a MAC address, that it is on the same medium as yourself.

Routers work on layer 3, which uses IP addresses to identify hosts.

IP packets are independent of a medium; addresses not in private ranges are meant to be globally reachable. Layer 3 has the notion of a network to allow it not to care about the actual medium (or anything Layer 2 does).

Obviously though, you have local neighbors (on your switch, for example, or associated to your wireless AP) that are reachable directly, and then hosts you probably want to talk to outside of your network. Thus, the concept of a router or forwarder is needed. Hosts in the same network can reach each other directly, if they are not in the same network, then one or more routers need to hand off traffic between networks.

So routers do not send data to all computers on the network, but forward traffic between networks.

Ishtiaq Nabi
by Ishtiaq Nabi , Sr Network security Engineer , verifacts services pvt ltd

A multilayer switch also called L3 switch can perform the functions of a switch as well as that of a router at incredibly fast speeds

Some of the Modals of cisco MLS switches:3550,3560,3750,4500,6500,7000

Mohammad Rafatulla
by Mohammad Rafatulla , Head of IT and Head of Marketing , IT SERVICES (www.its.com.bd)

YES, router maintain 3rd level of the network layer and switch maintain the 2nd lavel of the network layer. so router can do what switch can but switch can't do all what router can.

YES in the modular and also in some non modular router series..

Yes but some type of Router

MOHAMED NAZAR
by MOHAMED NAZAR , Senior IT Engineer , Green Chip

Yes possible in managable switch

Ahmad  Ali
by Ahmad Ali , Assistant Network Administrator , Virtual University of Pakistan

yes advance devices provide this facility.

Alok Rathour
by Alok Rathour , Ms SQL Server Db Specialist , Sopra Steria India Ltd

yes in some models it is possible.

Suhail Arshad
by Suhail Arshad , IT Analyst , UASAC / Hapag Lloyd

Yes, special switches can act as switch and a router

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