For what can I use this "Ethernet Network Splitter"?

[Eldin]

I bought this Ethernet Network Splitter almost a year ago because I needed to connect 2 devices to 1 Ethernet port on a router.
That failed to work.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154931376
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154932288

I can't figure out for what is this "Splitter" used for.

These are the things I tried:

• Plug in the male end into a router.
  Then I plug in 1 device into female end (internet works)
  As soon I plug in 2nd device into female end internet on both devices stops working (they show that network cable is not connected)
  
• Plug in male end into PC
  Then I plug in Ethernet cable from a router into female end (internet works)
  Then I plug in another Ethernet cable from another router into 2nd female port on andapter. (On PC it shows Network cable disconnected)

To recap it:
If I connect 1 Ethernet cable to any of the 2 female ports, interrent works
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154945680
But if I connect 2 Ethernet cables to both female ports, internet doesn't work
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154956904


So, how exactly do I use this Ethernet Network Splitter?

[Talby]

Agree, have never seen a splitter of this type that act as a "mini-hub" - they usually take gigabit-capable 4-pair ethernet wire into two 10/100 capable connections that only need 2-pairs.

diagram:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/BTQQc.gif

If they did support 4-pair with a mini-hub or switch built-in, I can only imagine they would need POE to power it.

Have used them decades ago to use the CAT5 cable in my home's phone wiring to split between the old analog phone line and a 10/100 data connection.

[Eldin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Talby:

Agree, have never seen a splitter of this type that act as a "mini-hub" - they usually take gigabit-capable 4-pair ethernet wire into two 10/100 capable connections that only need 2-pairs.

diagram:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/BTQQc.gif

If they did support 4-pair with a mini-hub or switch built-in, I can only imagine they would need POE to power it.

Have used them decades ago to use the CAT5 cable in my home's phone wiring to split between the old analog phone line and a 10/100 data connection.

That diagram can't be correct for my Splitter.
According to that diagram, if I plug in male end into PC, I could plug cable from the router only into the left female port, and plugging it in the right port wouldn't work.

But in reality it works in any port (it only doesn't work if I plug the cable in the both ports at the same time.)

And according to that diagram, left and right female ports shouldn't have any contact with each other.
But I did this and it works
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2156355871
Yellow cable goes from router into one female port, and white cable goes from other female port to the PC.
Male end of the Splitter isn't plugged in anywhere.
According to the diagram this shouldn't work.
But it does

[Talby]

Interesting, it could be the gig port you are connecting to is auto-sensing a 10/100 connection on either pair, and when both are used it's confused...

Just digging through the thread, some alternative suggestions over the split network config:

- do not setup an FTP server at all, lol - plenty of MFT servers that use https like Jscape, and setup a port forward and your cousin can login from his internet
- enable the OpenVPN server on the OpenWRT device and setup a port forward, and allow your cousin to login to access the not-ftp server
- setup a private bittorrent server / tracker and send your cousin the links

[Omega]

Yeah don't use FTP, most browsers are in the process of dropping support for it. And that is besides it's other shortcomings.

I'd use SSH or VNC instead.

If hosting the files on a Windows machine and you are only accessing it locally you could also setup a share in a few clicks.

[Eldin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Talby:

Interesting, it could be the gig port you are connecting to is auto-sensing a 10/100 connection on either pair, and when both are used it's confused...

Now, I'm getting confused. Can you please explain this part a little bit more?

Diposting pertama kali oleh Talby:

- do not setup an FTP server at all, lol - plenty of MFT servers that use https like Jscape, and setup a port forward and your cousin can login from his internet

That FTP server was an example. I just wanted to know how would I access it IF it was connected like that.
I have set up SAMBA server on Raspberry Pi for everyday use.
But I use FTP when transferring files between phone and PC. That's the easiest way for me.
I can enable FTP server on the phone with few taps and I'm ready to transfer files to/from PC.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Talby:

- enable the OpenVPN server on the OpenWRT device and setup a port forward, and allow your cousin to login to access the not-ftp server

I set up WireGuard tunnel on a Raspberry Pi so I (and other family members) can access the home network from anywhere.

[Pocahawtness]

Diposting pertama kali oleh vadim:

Diposting pertama kali oleh ｢C❤️A｣ Pocahawtness:

It allows you plug say two printers in to a single port on a router. You are basically sharing a 1gbps bandwidth between the two devices but you will get data collisions.

If this splitter actually works as Bad Motha explained tnen both claims are wrong.

Well, I have no idea what the explanations are, but they are wrong. The splitter does exactly what I said. It is a simple hard wired connection between the ports. There is no isolation though, so it works on the principle that messages can collide but those collisions will be corrected. This is fine for low bandwidth but the more messages each device is transmitting the more collisions so if you use two devices that send a lot of messages, the performance is declines rapidly. Hence the reason why it's better to get a hub or switch. It's fine for many things, especially if you don't want to use additional power for a hub or switch.

[iceman1980]

Doing some further research all an Ethernet splitter does is take a single 8 pair wire and shrink it down to a 4 pair allowing two 100Mbps links over the one cable but at the other end they have to unbundled. You can't just plug an Ethernet splitter into two devices then the one single end into a switch it will not know how to handle it.

So basically the two connectors on both ends will still occupy two ports on both ends. Turns out you can also get CAT6a enabled splitters. Still I don't see a reason to use one. Two to one to two or just two to two cables.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Just google. Which would have helped you understand all this before buying stuff you never understood before-hand.

Modem > Router > Switch

Switch added for more wired ports, the Router will handle all the traffic, ip addressing. Make sure all cables are quality ones, such as CAT5E or CAT6A. Without the E or A, they are just cheap junk cables.

[vadim]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Bad 💀 Motha:

Make sure all cables are quality ones, such as CAT5E or CAT6A. Without the E or A, they are just cheap junk cables.

It's better to have Cat 6 (without "A") cable than Cat 5e.

[Eldin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Bad 💀 Motha:

Just google. Which would have helped you understand all this before buying stuff you never understood before-hand.

Modem > Router > Switch

Switch added for more wired ports, the Router will handle all the traffic, ip addressing. Make sure all cables are quality ones, such as CAT5E or CAT6A. Without the E or A, they are just cheap junk cables.

Are these good CAT7 cables?
https://www.gearbest.com/ethernet-cables/pp_3004256430410400.html

In local stores, 1m of regular CAT5 cables costs more than $3 and they don't sell any other Ethernet cables but those CAT5.

I was thinking about ordering some of those CAT7 cables but I'm not sure are they good quality because of the low price.

[Omega]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Eldin:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Bad 💀 Motha:

Just google. Which would have helped you understand all this before buying stuff you never understood before-hand.

Modem > Router > Switch

Switch added for more wired ports, the Router will handle all the traffic, ip addressing. Make sure all cables are quality ones, such as CAT5E or CAT6A. Without the E or A, they are just cheap junk cables.

Are these good CAT7 cables?
https://www.gearbest.com/ethernet-cables/pp_3004256430410400.html

In local stores, 1m of regular CAT5 cables costs more than $3 and they don't sell any other Ethernet cables but those CAT5.

I was thinking about ordering some of those CAT7 cables but I'm not sure are they good quality because of the low price.

CAT 5e is the best you will need in your use case. Get CAT6 if you are wiring a house or building a homelab.

CAT 6a and higher are for industrial usecases and very large networks.

That CAT7 cable can push 100x more data then your splitter, and it has a ton of shielding to deal with huge amounts of electromagnetic interference. Just to show how overkill it is.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

CAT7 is overkill for general consumer use

[Pocahawtness]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Product ∏:

Doing some further research all an Ethernet splitter does is take a single 8 pair wire and shrink it down to a 4 pair allowing two 100Mbps links over the one cable but at the other end they have to unbundled. You can't just plug an Ethernet splitter into two devices then the one single end into a switch it will not know how to handle it.

So basically the two connectors on both ends will still occupy two ports on both ends. Turns out you can also get CAT6a enabled splitters. Still I don't see a reason to use one. Two to one to two or just two to two cables.

Some do, some don't. Some of them use the unused wires in a cable so that you have two signals on one cable. But I don't think that is the type here, I think the type here is the one that just combines the two in to a single Ethernet, just allowing two devices to be plugged in to one.

[Eldin]

I connected my Asus and Tenda routers LAN to LAN.
Then I noticed that no matter to which network I'm connected with a device if I see IP address to static and use 192.168.50.xxx as IP and 192.168.50.1 as a gateway, the device uses my Internet, but if I set IP to 192.168.0.xxx and 192.168.0.1 as a gateway, he'd device uses cousin's internet.

The problem is that if I use 192.168.0.xxx as IP, that device can't communicate with other devices on my network that uses 192.168.50.xxx as IP.
How to fix that? (without changing subnet)

If I connect to my cousin's router (192.168.0.1), I can set 192.168.0.101 as a gateway (My Tenda router), and the internet still works.
Does that mean if I change the subnet of my Asus router from 50 to 0 (or find a way to make them communicate on different subnets) that I could set my Asus router as a gateway while connected to cousin's router and use my internet while connected to his network?

Basically what I was planning to do (because I can't figure out bonding with OpenWrt on Raspberry) is to buy this Load Balance Broadband Router[www.amazon.com], bond both networks with that, make all devices on both mine and cousin's network use Load Balancing Router as a gateway and have static IP 192.168.50.xxx so they can all use bonded speed of both networks.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2161489507

But before I do this, I need to know answers to the above questions, is it possible to do this and will it work how I imagined it?

[Eldin]

An another thing I forgot to tell is this.
Tenda gives 192.168.0.xxx as IP because cousin's router's DHCP gives those addresses.
But when I connect Tenda and Asus LAN to LAN then Asus starts dominating and its DHCP gives 192.168.50.xxx to devices that are connected to Tenda which has 192.168.0.101 as IP.

I guess this is a good thing because if I could make the bonding thing work on 50 subnet then I could configure Asus DHCP to set default gateway as 192.168.50.101 (Load Balancing Router) to all devices, so all devices that connect to Asus, Tenda or Raspberry WiFi would automatically use bonded network?

Only devices that connect to cousin's router would have to be set up manually to use static IP and default gateway?
(His router is locked by his ISP so we can't change any settings on it.)