New to this

Alright, so this is a fairly new realm for me, and I'd like some
advice. I can do research on my own, just need a jumping point.

I've been tasked with organizing our small business network a bit. Here
is what we have, and what we want. We currently have a router/firewall
that is not locally managed, and an internal Class C LAN. (192.168.1.x)
We would like to add more class C LAN's internally (192.168.2.x,
192.168.3.x, 192.168,4.x) etc.. I realize (and have already played
with) that we can use routers to transfer between the subnets, but

1)would this mean I would need a router for each subnet? (3 in this
example I gave).

2) Also, I notice that most routers (cisco, etc) are set up for support
of weird protocols on the WAN side, we just need static IP, is there
something better for our application?

3) Someone threw around the word "routing switch", but does this
transfer between different subnet??

Help me out here guys, where to start....

> 1)would this mean I would need a router for each subnet?

No. You need one router addressed to each logical network.

> 2) Also, I notice that most routers (cisco, etc) are set up for support
> of weird protocols on the WAN side, we just need static IP, is there
> something better for our application?

Hard to say. There's a few gotchas with Cisco. To assign multiple
addresses to an interface you'll need to trunk a 100Mb interface to a
switch which supports vlans. This will likely set you back a thousand
dollars easy. You can accomplish the same thing with Unix for free with
a spare machine.

A Unix router and consumer-grade switch makes a good starting point.

But isnt each subnet a logical network? (confused here..)

Also, someone told me to get a layer-3 switch, and that would route
between multiple (more than 2) subnets and do what I need, is this true?

> But isnt each subnet a logical network?

Precisely.

> Also, someone told me to get a layer-3 switch, and that would route
> between multiple (more than 2) subnets and do what I need, is this true?

I suppose. Never used one. Have you priced l3 switches? There's not much
middle ground here. You can do it cheaply or pay $1000+.