to Cable Forum
Hmm, home network, Gigabit speed, sounds a bit excessive to me, but each to their own
You should also be aware of ntl's user piolicy that limits you to 3 PCs.
Of course regardless of the speed of the LAN, your Internet connection will still only connect at the maximum 10meg, or whatever speed you have, so you LAN speed will be pegged to that for any internet. Thus your LAN speed at Gigabit will only benefit for internal file shares.
A switch or hub at any speed, does not have any DHCP server on it, thus it won't add a layer of IP addresses to your network. Thus you just plug your switch in between the router and computers and that should do the job.