The multipoint for the network (Nikkai ZF82D 5-port 10/100Mbps Ethernet Switch)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Nikkai ZF82D 5-port 10/100Mbps Ethernet Switch
Date:	20/08/08 (247 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple, cheap, effective

Disadvantages: Only available from Maplins

If you have read any of my other reviews on the various networking devices we use around our house, you will know that I will choose a wired network over a wireless one every time. Wired is more secure; there is virtually no chance of anyone "listening in" to a wired network whereas, even encrypted wireless network traffic can be intercepted, especially if you are still only using WEP encryption or, worse still, not using any encryption at all. No one using wireless networking should be using less than WPA and preferably WPA2.

Now, I do realise that wireless is by far the neatest. You have no problems about wires running all over the place and the devices can be positioned just about anywhere you like, so long as they can "see" a signal from the wireless access point, usually a wireless router or ADSL modem/router. However, generally data transmission speeds over a wired network are far higher than over a wireless one and the connection is definitely more reliable; my daughter will confirm that. She has to use wireless in our house at the moment, having damaged the network port in her laptop.

Our house has timber-frame internal walls and so routing network, or indeed any cables through the space between the two plasterboard skins is perfectly feasible. It does require some work, that's true, but the end result is neat and tidy. The network wall-plates are no more obtrusive than any wall sockets and mostly I have been able to locate them exactly where I need them. The actual devices are then connected via fly-leads from the sockets.

In most rooms where a network connection is available, I have only installed a single socket. The exception is the lounge, where I have three, anticipating the availability of TV over Broadband in the not-to-distant future. The connection by the TV will be for a Media Centre device such as an Xbox360 of maybe a PC running something like Windows Home Media Center Edition.

The single socket in the other rooms was perfectly adequate, until recently. One of the rooms is a bedroom which is currently used as a home office by my wife. The single socket was connected just to her laptop. Then we had a problem with the printer in there. We were using an HP Deskjet 5550 connected by a USB lead to my wife's computer and this was shareable over the network so that we could all use it.

This had always been less than entirely satisfactory as it required my wife's machine always to be switched on. When she was out on business it tended not to be and so in order to be able to use the printer we had to go and fire up her laptop. That meant that we all had to know her password, which is always an unsatisfactory situation. Yes, I know we could have set up a secondary ID on the machine with limited rights, we just never got around to doing that. It was also no use when she took her laptop with her!

Anyway, be that as it may, the printer then went faulty, so we needed another urgently. Bearing in mind the issue we had had I specifically looked for a printer that could be connected directly to the network rather than having to rely on a connection via my wife's laptop. The one I ended up with was the HP Photosmart All-in-one C7280 I recently reviewed. This offers direct USB plus wireless and wired network connectivity. For wired, of course, I now needed a second network port in the room!

Now, I could have simply spent an afternoon lifting floors and scrabbling around in the loft, running another network cable into the room. However, I thought about the issue and realised that the amount of data traffic running in and out of the room would not be great and so the single port should be more than adequate to handle the load, once the problem of connecting two devices into one port was solved.

What I wanted was something small, effective and most of all, cheap. I needed a device that would be the equivalent of a multipoint power socket, you know, one of those devices you plug into the power socket on the wall, that has a block of power sockets attached to the other end of the cable. We all use them, most usually around the TV, were there are never enough wall sockets for the TV, Sky+ box, DVD recorder, Blueray player, home cinema surround-sound sytem and so on.

I found exactly what I needed in Maplins. The Nikkai ZF82D 5-port 10/100Mbps Ethernet Switch appears to be exclusive to Maplins; I have never seen it in any other store and it appears not to be available over the Internet from anywhere else. This very neat device is just 10 by 7 by 1.5 cms and comes in a creamy coloured plastic casing. On the back are the five network ports and on the top are six green LEDs: one power light and one each for each of the network ports, to show when they are active. The device is powered by a supplied transformer plug with a fly lead to the device.

There is not preference for network ports so any connection can be plugged into any port. In this arrangement, one port is connected to the wall network socket, one to the laptop and another to the printer. That leaves two spare and in due course these may get used for, for instance, a stand-alone Internet phone.

The device just works. Plug in the cables and everything is immediately talking to everything else. In this setup the Nikkai switch is even talking through another switch, an 8-port Belkin switch I've used for years and which acts as the general distribution point between the broadband router and everything else. Even though the Internet connection to my wife's laptop now goes through two network switches, a broadband router and a cable modem the data rate on the network traffic does not seem to have been noticeably affected, which is really good.

I have been very impressed with this simple and inexpensive (£19.95) device. We have been using it for some time and it has never missed a beat. If you are a wired network advocate, as I am, and find yourself in a similar situation I can strongly recommend the Nikkai Ethernet Switch as a solution for squeezing a "quart into a pint pot".

Summary: The solution for connecting multiple devices into a single network connection

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