Zend certified PHP/Magento developer

Does an off-the-shelf router have all LAN ports bridged?

I want to roll my own router, as the one provided by my ISP is terrible.

The router of course provides DHCP and routing on all 4 of the LAN ports.

Does this mean that it provides DHCP and routing on each port individually? Or does it mean that it bridges all four ports in software and then provides DHCP and routing to that bridge device?

To the user, it would look functionally identical. But when setting up the router, there is a difference. I’m assuming one is more “correct” than the other. What is the best practice?