Five Ethernet ports serve as an industrially hardened switch, which can be used as a “plug-and-play” unmanaged switch, or as a managed switch using features such as RSTP (rapid spanning tree protocol) for fast redundant rings. Even after a break in a communications pathway, messages will be delivered, says the vendor. The vendor’s managed switches can detect and report network problems before they seriously affect network operations. Features of the integrated industrial telephone modem include easy and secure dial-in connections, point-to-point for dial-up connections, and automatic dial-out on a trigger input.
