Wi-Fi is convenient — but for anything that stays put, copper still wins

The argument

Almost every "my Wi-Fi is bad" problem is one of four things, and one of them is simply too many devices sharing one radio.

Wi-Fi is a shared medium. Every device on a band takes turns, and the access point arbitrates. When four things in one room are all streaming — a TV, a console, a desktop and a NAS — they are not each getting a quarter of the bandwidth; they are queueing for airtime, and latency spikes for all of them at once.

Ethernet does not work that way. A switch gives each port its own collision domain and forwards frames at line rate. Two devices on gigabit ports can each have a gigabit, simultaneously, all the way to the switch's internal fabric.

So the honest advice for anything that does not move — a TV, a console, a desktop, a NAS, a printer — is a cable. The Wi-Fi then gets to serve the things that actually need to be wireless, and everybody's experience improves without buying a new router.

This is the cheapest way to do that.

What it is

Eight RJ45 ports, all gigabit, all identical. No uplink port, no fast port, no odd man out. Metal case, fanless, 158 × 101 × 25 mm, 391 grams.

Plug the router into one port, plug everything else into the others. There is no interface, no IP address, no app. It has one job and no opinions.

Three numbers worth translating

2.77 W maximum. Running this continuously for a year is about 24 kWh. At South African domestic rates that is roughly the price of a coffee, annually. It is genuinely cheaper to run than the standby draw of the TV plugged into it.

8 ports × 1 Gbps. The switch's internal fabric has to carry all of that at once; unmanaged gigabit switches are built for it, which is why "non-blocking" is not a feature they advertise — it is the baseline.

158 × 101 × 25 mm. Small enough to sit behind a TV or on top of a router without being noticed, which matters because the correct place for it is wherever the cables already are.

Where it is better than it needs to be

IGMP snooping. Multicast — IPTV, some streaming boxes, mDNS discovery — is normally flooded to every port on a cheap switch. Snooping tracks who actually asked for the stream and sends it only there. On an eight-port home switch this rarely matters, but it costs nothing to have.

QoS on 802.1p and DSCP. It will honour priority markings if your devices set them. It cannot create priority where none exists, so do not expect it to fix a congested uplink.

The loop-prevention button. Plug a switch back into itself and you get a broadcast storm that takes the whole network down in seconds. A physical button that stops it is unusual on an unmanaged unit, and it is the single best feature here for anyone who has ever tidied cables in a hurry.

Where it falls short

It is unmanaged, and that is the whole limitation. No VLANs, so you cannot segment a guest network or isolate IoT devices at the switch. No port mirroring, so no packet capture. No link aggregation, so you cannot bond two ports for 2 Gbps to a NAS.

No Power over Ethernet. If you were hoping to run cameras or access points off this, you need a PoE switch instead, and they cost meaningfully more.

No SFP. No fibre uplink, so this is a copper-only device for good.

And the manual's own specification table is wrong. It lists a "data transfer rate" of 142.8 Mbps alongside eight gigabit ports — a line that contradicts the product it describes. The ports are 10/100/1000; treat that table row as an error rather than a limit. It is a reminder that even manufacturer documentation is not infallible.

Who should buy something else

If you need PoE, buy a PoE switch. There is no adapter worth the trouble.

If you want VLANs, you need a managed switch — and once you are there, you are configuring a network rather than plugging in a box.

If your problem is coverage, not congestion, a switch will do nothing. That is a different problem with a different fix, and the guide linked below is the place to start.

Specs that matter

Specifications

Type	Unmanaged, plug and play
Case	Metal, fanless
Dimensions	158 × 101 × 25 mm
Weight	391 g
Power	5 V, 2.77 W maximum
Features	802.3x flow control, 802.1p/DSCP QoS, IGMP snooping, loop prevention
Auto MDI/MDIX	Yes
Operating temperature	0–40 °C
Warranty	3 years

Questions

Sources

• TP-Link TL-SG108 user manual and specifications
• Retail listing, Amazon