NETGEAR 48 Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Network Switch (GS348) - Desktop or Rackmount, Silent Operation, Ethernet Splitter, Plug-and-Play

I have used Netgear equipment for some years and have generally been impressed by their seemingly good build quality and general reliability.When I needed a new 16 port switch after a house move I ordered this Netgear product. However when I installed it I couldn’t get it to work at all. I naturally thought that I had made some kind of error in my cabling and spent a lot of time fiddling around but in the end I came to the conclusion that it had to be a fault on the route itself.I then went on to the US Amazon website to check the reviews on this product there (the USA site is useful because of the huge numbers of reviews that give good statistical data). Sure enough there were a significant number of reviews reporting units either dead out of the box or failing in the first few months. I then looked at reviews on other makes of switch and there is a similar pattern of early failures.This looks to me to be very likely caused by faulty printed circuit boards: a switch requires complex interconnection because of the high number of interconnections (ethernet sockets, signal transformers etc which requires a complex circuit board probably with 15 or 20 layers. Boards like this are extremely expensive to test so that in practice testing is only done for critical applications like aircraft electronics. For low cost consumer products it is cheaper not to test and just take the hit on customer returns. This is particularly evident on computer motherboards where notoriously customer returns can run to 15 - 20% (again there is good data on this on Amazon.com).I returned the faulty unit and got a refund. Having looked to the other products I decided in the end to go for a TP-Link TL-SG1016D, purely on the basis that it has useful LED indicators showing active ports with speed indication - useful for diagnosis of network issues. It has been performing reliably for 18 months now.My advice would be:- decide which product is best for you based on its features- avoid ‘smart’ managed switches: they are designed for commercial installations where it is necessary to monitor remote devices from a central office. This is rarely necessary in a home set up and the international complexity makes failure more likely- only buy direct from Amazon or from a provider ‘fulfilled by Amazon‘so you can take advantage of the no quibble Amazon return system if you have a problem.

Working perfectly so far as the centre of my home network, installed in my loft. Wall mountable in any orientation, with fixings provided. Fanless operation so shouldn't suck in too much dust. Clear LED indicators. Throughput is exactly as expected.Update, July 2022:Four years on and the switch is still working perfectly. It has been in constant operation without a single blip or restart. My biggest concern was the wide variation in temperature in my loft throughout the year, but it has coped with no issues whatsoever.

Dieser unmanaged Switch bringt in meinem Netzwerk eine höhere Leistung als ein managed Cisco Switch, der 3x soviel gekostet hatte. Wielange der Switch halten wird, weiß ich noch nicht. Bis jetzt macht er einen sehr guten Eindruck.WICHTIG: Ich hab ein Gerät bekommen, wo eine Befestigungsschraube von der Hauptplatine im Gehäuse herumgekullert ist. Evtl. den Switch vor Verwendung mal schütteln ;)Der Switch lässt sich leicht öffnen und ich hab alle Schrauben festgezogen. Es waren mehrere Schrauben komplett locker...und eine, wie gesagt, machte sich selbstständig. Sowas kann natürlich zum Totalschaden führen, sobald Strom anliegt...

Nowadays, you get yourself a wireless router, with around 3-4 ports on the rear, I think some even come with 1-2, but man, I've got around 9 pieces of equipment that I like to have wired. Wireless is great, but that's convenience, wired will always be better and more reliable. So, I had to make a decision, have a ton of wireless settings to sort or just get one of these and a handful of patch leads, fixed, forever, no loss of connection.

This is an absolute no-brainer. You plug network cables in & stuff just works, first time, continually, straight out of the box. I've got new kit, legacy stuff & an AV1300 Powerline link connected, & it all works perfectly with zero issues. Solid as a rock & perfect to form the heart of the wired part of a home network.