Why everyone needs multi-gigabit switches now

If you have any kind of conversation about network switches, sooner or later you're going to hear the term ‘multi-gig’ mentioned. This is simply the short version of ‘multi-gigabit’ and it means that a switch will be capable of supporting multiple gigabit speeds or bandwidths across its ports. But why would you need a switch that was capable of supporting different speeds?

Well, in a sense, switches have always been ‘multi-gig’ or at least ‘multi-speed’. Even on fairly simple devices in the past you would have multiple ports (offering 1Gbps for example) to which you would connect client devices – PCs and laptops, printers, access points and so on; and at least one ‘uplink’ port that would be of a higher speed (perhaps 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps or 10Gbps) that would connect the switch to the main backbone of the network.

These two different speeds – or more accurately, bandwidths – are needed because while there will be relatively small volumes of traffic moving between each of the client devices and the switch, all the traffic going to and from these client devices through the switch ports will need to travel through the uplink. You therefore need more room – or bandwidth – on that uplink.

This means that networks need to be designed more thoughtfully and you will need to place the right switches in the right place on the network. Having ‘multi-gig’ capability makes it easier to do that – and that’s why just about all Zyxel Networks switches now come with support for different speeds through downstream ports and as much as 10Gbps on the uplink ports.

If you have any questions about our multi-gigabit switches or you want to know more about how to optimise the design of your network? Please contact one of our partners or your nearest Zyxel Networks office.