Setting up a network in a home or office is quite a task. Determining where your computers will be, how to get an Ethernet cable to those that need them, and making sure they can all talk to each other and the internet is a complicated, demanding project. There is a lot to consider. One of the items you need to take into consideration is the kind of box you want to connect all of your computers together. There are two kinds of network boxes to consider: hubs and switches. Routers, which can look like either of these items, are used for bridging multiple networks together, something that SOHO (small office/home office) networks do not have to worry about, beyond connecting their network to the Internet. Considering how much more routers can cost, small businesses and people working from home would be wiser to go for either hubs or switches when linking their computers together. The question, then, is which to go for? Hubs are the simplest boxes out there, simply acting as repeaters of network traffic. They broadcast any network traffic they receive to all the computers on the network. This can result in data collisions, which can be a real plague to busier networks. They can be the cheapest network devices out there, however, and really small networks should not need more than a couple of them to link all their computers (and network printer) together. Switches are more sophisticated. They have the ability to act as traffic controllers, limiting their repeat function only toward the computer that is the receiver of the data in question. Because of this, collisions are mostly eliminated from the equation, making switches more desirable for larger networks and those with high traffic volume. Switches can also bridge different physical network standards together, letting computers using the Ethernet standard talk to computers using the Fibre Channel standard, treating them as a single network. Both serve the purpose of network building well, and it is possible to use both within a single network. Which and how to use them are entirely up to the individual(s) building the network.