Yes, you could hook your TV, provided it had network capability, and you laptops, desktops, PS3, Xbox etc to these devices and they would all share the same internet connection.
None of these are wireless so everything you connect to it will need to be connected with a cable.
The advantage of these things is that they are built to handle more data throughput than you run of the mill home user based product. There are a lot more advantages however they all mainly focus on complex networks as most of these switches can be managed. Meaning that each port can be configured to behave in a specific way, you could create sub networks within your network so they run isolated, the big fucker pictured above can even prioritise the data coming through based on rules you defined, it can also take 2 separate ports and treat them as one, doubleing the amount of data it can transmit to a device, and a bunch of other things which i wont get into. Only reason i have all this stuff (mainly the Cisco (the big fucker) switch) was to help in my certification of network engineer. I gave that up, reluctantly, and chose a different path though IT, so i dont need any of it.
I run one of these switches at home, simply because i paid the builder with said beer to let me run cables throughout my house prior to the dry wall going up, so i have a network port in almost every room which connects back to a switch, then out through the router. I prefer a cabled network over wireless as its faster, and besides i had all the hardware sitting there so why not!?
Ive setup home networks for some friends of mine before, so if you need me to come down and design you a network or connect your things together let me know, id be happy to help
Where's Glen? I need to borrow his pipe and slippers?
