Such thing as a wireless only router?

My friend has a Netgear router and she says it's wireless only and has to unplug it everytime someone wants to use a direct connection and plug it in when she wants to use wireless, not both at the same time. I havn't heard of this before, I was just wondering if there is a Netgear router that's wireless only. Because for direct connection she is using a modem (i think). Also, could it be that she's just not using the router properly?

 

Wireless networking support is something done at the physical level, while routing is performed at the IP level (also known as network level). A router shouldn't care who's connected to it and how, it merely provides IP addresses to clients and routes between them. The physical connection may be implemented through a switch (wired Ethernet) or a wireless access point.

However, it could be that your friend has a router with only LAN port (maybe a combined modem/router?). If that's the case, the router doesn't have an integrated switch and you cannot connect multiple wired clients directly to it - you'll need a switch (or a hub) to do so.