Here´s the situation, I´m living on a serviced apartment, very nice and all that, but the Internet connection sucks. Besides being something like 3 times the price of the service offered by providers (I don´t have direct phone line so I can´t contract ADSL) the main problem is that it can only be used with one computer.
Let´s say I pay a 1 month fee, I plug the LAN cable on my laptop and log-in with the user name and password given on the receipt. Now that connection is locked in on my laptop, and if my GF wants to use Internet she can´t use her laptop.
So the question is, how can I set up the PC as a hub of sorts so that I log in to the LAN with it and can use a WiFi adapter to connect to the internet with either my GF or my own laptop?
I agree that a router would be the best option, but If the internet connection has some kind of web-based login, then it will be difficult to set up a router to connect to it - and what the OP is asking for should be possible using Internet Connection Sharing
Yes, that´s the issue, the connection uses web login, although it only has to be accesed once per month.
I´ll have to rumiate through that link later, my eyes kind of glazed over on the first try.
Any other advice would be welcome in the mean time; for example I want to set up a wireless network, but the PC I intend to use as a server doesn´t have WiFi, am I right in assuming that pluggin in a spare WiFi USB dongle I have lying around I can set things up or I need a WiFi router anyway?
All wifi routers have ports for a cable connection as well. So you can use that and your girlfriend can use the wireless. Some (all?) routers can cope with the web-based login.
I believe that’s pretty much the case. One thing that might be important with this setup is the signal strength/availability - so it might be worth skipping the cheaper USB adaptors and get one with a flip up antenna.
I can’t help wondering if there’s some more elegant solution though - I don’t know if any of the more functional routers support web-based authentication on the WAN connection.
I am guessing that during the web based authentication (which verifies payment) the gateway records the MAC address of the authorising device.
If you use your PC to do this through a NAT device, the exposed MAC is that of the NAT box, and it should be validated for the month. Since the only visible device is the NAT, anything within the NAT will have access to the internet. Even if there is an issue authorising via the NAT, you could authorise using your PC and then clone the MAC address from the PC to the NAT device (most routers allow you to do this). But it sounds like this is not likely to be needed.
Just make sure you use a NAT router, and not a bridge.
I think you may be right - WAN connection will just redirect all requests to the authentication page until it’s satisfied you’ve logged in - but without knowing the ins and outs of the connection setup, I’d suggest trying to borrow a router and testing this before committing to the hardware.
I kind of grok all what you said, but can you elaborate on what on Og`s green Earth is a NAT router, and why is different than your standard, garden variety router.
Since I paid for a 1 month connection yesterday and logged in with my laptop I´m going to test sharing the connection with my GF and see who it goes.
In practical everyday terms, there’s no difference - the routers you buy for home internet use (i.e. the garden variety) all perform Network Address Translation (although some let you switch it off and use your own routing scheme - if, for example, you do actually own a block of static IP addresses and want to assign them to individual machines on your network).
I believe Si may have been cautioning against buying some other device such as a wireless client bridge or range extender.
NAT is Network Address Translation. Almost all current wireless routers do NAT - it allows multiple computers on an internal network to share a single valid realworld IP address, while hiding all the details from the clients.
Look at a Linksys WRT54G wireless router - it would be ideal, but Belkin or Netgear devices would also do the trick.
Some Cable modems or Cable Routers are actually ethernet bridges - they are not devices in their own right, just passthrough devices. The client PC gets the realworld IP address and is effectively sitting directly on the internet. These do not hide MAC addresses and are more likely to be restricted to a single device.
I ran into a similar situation to yours, Ale, and overcame it by making my laptop look like one that was already registered to the ISP. How? By changing the MAC address on my machine. Google “changing MAC address” for instructions and software to assist in this task. If this looks like something you want to do to your girlfriend’s machine, skim the links then post specific questions.
Even easier, as others have noted, would be to get a router that can copy the MAC address from your laptop so that the router appears to the ISP to be your laptop. It should also be able to store your username and password, automatically logging in as needed. I know that many Linksys and Netgear routers come with software that’ll take care of these tasks during the device’s setup.
It’s a little late in the message to ask, but are you using Windows XP? If so, when you look at Start–>Settings–>Network Connections, is there an icon under the heading “Broadband”? If so, you should be able to use a router, no problem.