Two additional devices that you can use are TAPs and Hubs:

• Test Access Point (TAPs): Instead of connecting a switch to the link you wish to monitor, you can connect a device called a TAP, a simple three-port device that, in this case, will play the same role as the switch. The advantage of a TAP over a switch is the simplicity and price. TAPs also forward errors that can be monitored on Wireshark, unlike a LAN switch that drops them. Switches, on the other hand, are much more expensive, take a few minutes to configure, but provide you with additional monitoring capabilities, for example, SNMP. When you troubleshoot a network, it is better to have an available managed LAN switch, even a simple one, for this purpose.

• Hubs: You can simply connect a hub in parallel to the link you want to monitor, and since a hub is a half-duplex device, every packet sent between the router and the SP device will be watched on your Wireshark. The biggest con of this method is that the hub itself slows the traffic, and therefore it influences the test. In many cases, you also want to monitor 1 Gbps ports, and since there is no hub available for this, you will have to reduce the speed to 100 Mbps that again will influence the traffic. Therefore, hubs are not commonly used for this purpose.