"HELP WITH NETWORKING CABLE MODEM"

Hi
I hope u can help me, i recently got cable and am wondering as i have 2 computers wether i can network them both so they are permantly connected to the internet, if you know how or can guide me in the right direction greatly appreciated.
Hoping you can help me

Thankyou
Melissa

Melissa:

There are a few options:
Cheapest Option:
1) If Your cable modem and PC have USB connectors and both PCs have enthernet cards then use the better PC (higher OS) to hook up to the modem, run a crossover wire between the ehternet cards of both PCs. The one with the USB Cable modem Modem will show 2 network adapters, your cable modem and the ethernet card. Go to network sharing and give static ips of 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 to your PC on the ethernet cards. 192.168.1.1 whold be on the better PC ethernet. Make the gateway on the second PC point to 192.168.1.1

Best Option:
2) Buy a cheap Cable DSL router (most of these have a small hub or switch incorporated and will do all the name and password stuff with your cable ISP. I personally love the LynkSys EtherFast Cable DSL Router for less than $100 at Wal mart or most any other PC store. Simply plug in normal ethernet wires from the cable router to each PCs ethernet card and generally one ethernet from you modem to the router uplink port. Set the PCs to DHCP everything from DSN to WINS to IP. Set the router as per the manual to DHCP Pass through. The only hurdle Ive found with this solution is VoIP (talk via messenger or AIM) often indicates a firewall is seperating you from your intended party. Make sure to setup IPSec Pass through to your main PC to jump this hurdle and then be sure to add some sort of Software firewall, as IPSec Passthrough (turning off the firewall to one particular internal IP) will give hackers an easy in to your PC.

I currently have live ports for 20 PCs at my house...unless I have my buddies over, there are only about 4 PCs running over this solution, and granted with 20 people, it is fast always on, but not nearly as fast as when you had one PC hooked to the modem (what most of your cable modem sharing neighbors have). I generally get about 400 to 500 kps on my cable, and given that I have a 100Mbps network inside the house, if more than one person is doing a high bandwidth stream or VPN, the others will suffer a sluggish connection. The bottleneck for the next year is going to always be the uplink. As long as you jump in with your eyes open, the concrete at the bottom of the dry pool dosen't seem quite so hard. Hope this helps, feel free to email me if you have specific problems with the setup.

DOES it cost extra to use a cable modem on 2 or more computers?

>DOES it cost extra to use
>a cable modem on 2
>or more computers?

No! (just don't tell your ISP)