Since there are a lot of computers at my house, I need to connect them all so that they can use the cable modem connection. At one point I had a machine that acted as a gateway/router, but it tended to keep me up at night, so I just bought a simple wireless router to replace it. So through the router are a couple of switches to connect everyone upstairs. I also have a phoneline bridge and a phoneline network adapter for one of the computers downstairs. The other ones are all wireless which is really nice to have. Here is a small network map: