Will this ethernet "splitter" work satisfactorily?

[Dale Farnsworth]

> NO! I'm sorry... It makes NOOOOOOO SENSE!

This doesn't solve the originally posted problem, since using it still
requires a switch, but once you understand what it does, it makes a lot
of sense.

It doesn't splice two connections onto one.  Since 100bT only needs two
twisted pairs and a cat-5 cable has 4 pairs, a cat-5 cable has enough
wires to support two independent 100bT connections.  You put one of these
"splitters" on each end of a cat 5 cable, and now it operates like two
independent cables.  We used these regularly at Motorola where we needed
an extra network connection in a cubicle, but didn't want to pull an extra
cat-5 cable.  It won't work for gig-E because a single gig-E connection
uses all 4 pairs of the cable.

Dale Farnsworth