>> But so realistically is the cost of a separate gigabit switch,
Cost me about
£30 for my Netgear gigabit switch. Thats £30 I wouldnt have had to pay if gigabit was included in my router.
Purchasing a separate unit is always going to cost way more than what it would for the manufacturers to put in a gigabit switch rather than a 10/100 switch into the router unit in the first place... which would be pennies for them.
>> your broadband is never going to run at that speed
I'm aware of that, but both the Media Center and my PC have gigabit ethernet cards from new. The Media Centre isnt really used often to connect to the Internet, but large files are often transferred between the 2 machines. making a gigabit network the obvious choice... and hence the need to purchase a separate switch.
One of my backup devices is a Buffalo Linkstation (now nearly 3 yr old but came by default with gigabit network card). That obviously is only ever used for transferring very large files & large amounts of data, and took a long time if I was doing a full backup via the switch in my router.
>> could well be a little longer before most households are "wired" in Cat 6 or fibre
Wired using standard cat5E cable.
>> On the other hand, you would think that the next generation of routers should just have 10/100/1000 by default.
Exactly my point.. most new PCs for the past few years come with gigabit network cards... makes sense to put in a gigabit switch... and I really cant understand why router manufacturers having been doing so long before now.
If they did it would make my netgear switch redundant and save me a wee bit on electricity and free up a plug socket.
Years ago router manufacturers didnt restrict switches to 10Mb and not install 10/100 just because adsl1 was only capable of speeds far less than 10Mb. Even back in the distant past when 512kb was the norm, they still installed 10/100 switches.
