A few questions about the nature of the ONT and the equipment on the customer end. Note: I may get some of my terminology wrong, so please forgive me if something I say doesn't make sense or if I get too wordy...but I'll do my best.
My house is currently wired with Cat5 Ethernet going to almost every room. I currently use Verizon/Frontier DSL. Their DSL Modem doubles as a 4-port router, as well as a wireless router.
So, I take 2 of the outlets from the Modem and wire them into a pair of 8-port gigabit switches to split up the signal and feed the Ethernet ports in my house. As I understand it, a "switch" is a "dumb" device that just passes signals around, while a router assigns addresses to each device, etc.
I think I read somewhere on this thread that the ONT has 4 Ethernet outlet ports. Does that mean that the ONT does the routing job of assigning addresses, etc. and I'll still be able to use my "dumb" switches to pass Ethernet to the rest of my house?
Also: if I remember correctly from long ago, I used to have a non-wireless DSL Modem that Verizon described as a "1-port router," so even though it had exactly one Ethernet outlet port, it could still assign addresses to multiple computers. When I hooked up an old Linksys wireless router to that, I had to turn off its routing features (I think they called this "bridge mode" but I may be remembering incorrectly). That way, the Linksys wouldn't be trying to set up its own addresses in conflict with addresses assigned by the Modem. Using that knowledge: if I want to set up wireless from the ONT, will I similarly need to run the wireless "router" in a non-router mode? Or, is there a better option for this purpose?
Thank you!
So, I got a few things for you here. Firstly, switches are actually smart devices that send packets to their intended recipient and therefore need to keep a table that matches IP addresses and MAC (Hardware) addresses. The dumb devices that you are thinking of might be hubs, which aren't really used in networking anymore. Hubs used to send every packet out to all connected clients, and then let the clients figure out which one should respond.
Secondly, what you're thinking of as a router is actually, most likely, three devices in one. Home routers are typically the router part, plus a build-in switch, plus a wireless network access point. Actually, the device you had from Verizon/Frontier is as described plus the modem part, which, of course, translates the data from one medium (pots lines) to a second (ethernet). The main purpose of the router part of these devices is to provide Network address translation (NAT) and be a gateway for the other devices on it's LAN.
In this case the ONT will have a switch, but because it's in bridge mode, acting only as a modem, only one port on that switch will be live to the DHCP server which provide connection information (IPs, Subnets and DNS) to the router which is connected to that port. This can be either your own home router, or the one that UIA provides.
DSL:
Verizon device = modem, router, switch, access point.
UIA:
ONT = modem and switch and router (which will be in bridge mode and thus doing no routing)
Router (possibly Readynet, if you don't have something better that you want to use) = Router (which is routing), switch (to plug your 2 8port switches into), and access point (to try and send wifi to all corners of your home).
