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Forum Discussion
Orbi RBK13 Ports
I just bought the Orbi RBK13 Mesh system thinking it was an upgrade. However, I work from home and need to connect my VoIP phone and printer/scanner to my router. This doesn't have ports for that. ...
jhughes wrote:I just bought the Orbi RBK13 Mesh system thinking it was an upgrade. However, I work from home and need to connect my VoIP phone and printer/scanner to my router. This doesn't have ports for that. Is there something I can add to the router to connect these or will this system not work for me?? I'm not very tech savvy so I hope I worded this correctly.
FURRYe38is correct. Rather than "ports", the RBK10 has one gigabit port. Connect a dumb gigabit switch to this port and suddenly you have 5, 8, or... (whatever size switch) ports.
Everybody sells them. Best Buy has models by Linksys, Netgear, etc. starting at $23US.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=gigabit+switch+8-port&_dyncharset=UTF-8&_dynSessConf=&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys as do Staples, OfficeDepot, and (of course) Amazon.
A five port switch costs the least, but leaves you with only two open ports (1 for Orbi, 1 for VoiP phone, 1 for Printer). The 8 port switches seem to be the "sweet spot" in terms of cost/value.
So I connect this to my Orbi or to my modem? Sorry. I'm dumb with this stuff....
Connect to the Orbi ethernet jack (not the WAN - yellow jack that connects to the modem).
Got it. Thanks again!!!
Well, Netgear got me again. On this model, the ethernet jack is not yellow, but there is a tiny yellow line under it.
The LAN ethernet port is labelled "Ethernet".
So, I went and got the Netgear GS108. Plugged it all in and my VoIP now works, desktop is connected but my printer now says it's offline.. Anyone know how to fix that? It's a Xerox WorkCentre 6515.