Dad had some problems with his broadband modem that were eventually traced to the phone line the modem connected to. But before blaming BT he checked with his ISP who sent out a new cable modem just in case.
So now Dad has two modems which both work. Is there any (cheap) way of sharing the outgoing phone line between two computers each with a cable modem?
If these are the kind of cheap USB modems that BT typically gives away with home broadband setups, then no, they can’t both be used on the same line at the same time.
However, the connection can still be shared and there are a couple of easy ways to do this:
-Get a broadband router modem like this one; after setting up, it will connect to the broadband all by itself and either or both of the computers can connect to the internet through it; the connection between the computers and the router would be by ethernet(you need an ethernet adaptor in the PC - most machines have one) or wireless(you need a wireless adaptor)
-Have just one PC connect to the broadband with one of the modems and share the internet connection across a mini-LAN (either connect the two machines together by an ethernet crossover cable, or buy a cheap ethernet switch/hub and plug them both into that with ordinary ethernet cables) - this can be a cheaper solution, but the second PC will not be able to connect to the internet without the first one being switched on and the internet connection sharing process on the first machine will consume some resources.
…Or install both modems and just make sure one disconnects before the other attempts to connect, but I don’t think you really want to do this.
I’m not an expert on Irish broadband, I think we have a terminology problem here. Cable modems are used with cable TV lines, not phone lines. DSL modems are used for phone lines, at least in the US. Those are very, very diferent devices.
What you want to do is common, easy, and cheap.
I’m going to assume you really have a DSL, not cable, connection from BT. What you want to do is plug one DSL modem into that phoneline. What comes out of there is a LAN, or network, connection. You can plug a cable from one computer’s network card directly into that connection.
To connect 2 computers you need one more gizmo, a home router/firewall. Common brands in the US are D-Link http://www.dlink.com/ and Linksys http://www.linksys.com. These generally let you share the connection between 4 or 5 or even 8 wired PCs, and an unlimited number of wireless PCs. If you don’t need wireless capability, prices here range from US$30 to 40; double that for wired+wireless models. You can also find used ones on eBay or your local equivalent for even less.
Once you have a router/firewall, you run a network cable from the LAN connection on the DSL modem to the WAN connection on the router/firewall, and then one additional network cable per PC from the network connection on the PC to a LAN connection on the router/firewall. Viola!, you’re sharing.
There is some software setup required on the router/firewall, but they’ve gotten very easy to use these days.
FYI, one idea that will NOT work is to plug each DSL modem into a different phone jack on the same phone line and then plug one computer into each DSL modem.
Pushkin, what is the make and model of the modems you have?
I’ll check when I get home, but as LSLGuy correctly pointed out, as its on a phone line its not a cable modem. I live in Belfast where cable TV is quite common so I let the cable modem slip out there, Dad lives in a phone line only area.
I suspect it will turn out to be a small, inexpensive USB broadband modem with no directly ethernet connectivity; these can only be shared in a way that necessitates the host being switched on all the time. Better to get a broadband router/modem/firewall - they’re quite cheap now - I have one of these, but cheaper devices are available, especially if you don’t require the wireless functionality. Just make sure you get a broadband modem router - if it doesn’t specify ‘modem’, it may be expecting to plug into an external one.
Yeah, I’ve shared both satellite and cable broadband inside the house with up to four machines. It’s an E-Z thing to do and presented little in the way of problem.
We have one cable modem, (ethernet) an ethernet hub, and we pay Comcast an extra $5.00 a month for a second IP address.
Unless there’s something about your local Comcast that I’m not aware of, or you need the PCs to have those particular IPs that you’re getting from Comcast, that’s wasting $60 a year. A broadband router will give you all the IPs you want for free. You probably just need to do a little “cloning” process so Comcast thinks the router is a single PC.
A router might pay for itself in short order here unless you have some special need for a specific or static IP. With a router installed, comcast basically only sees one connection, the router. The 4, 8, 25 machines you might hook to that router are irrelevant. The DHCP on the router assigns IP’s to the respective computers when they power up. This way a 3rd computer would not require another $5/month, and if you wanted to have a giant LAN party 8 of your friends could all plug in and play with no intervention on the part of your ISP.
Comcast customer <-
They shouldn’t be able to see anything on the far side of my router. They don’t know if I have 4 things going on on 1 machine or 4 machines doing 1 thing each.
drachillix is right - just power down the cable modem, install the router, and turn it back on. Comcast can tell how many devices are connected to it, but they don’t care what type they are.
BTW, give customer support a call. When, uh, my friend worked there, Comcast was just about to give almost everyone two IPs by default, so that 5$ charge may not be required.
Heck, I’ve got a used D-Link router someone could have for free. I bought it used off eBay with the thought that I was going to get a network adapter for my PS2 and use the router to connect both the PS2 and the computer (that never happened.) I did try using it when I got to my parents’ house and wanted to get my computer hooked up with their DSL and the router works just fine. Only problem is you’ll have to wait until Thanksgiving because I left it at my parents’ house along with the CD.
Speaking of DSL questions, I’ve got QWest DSL with an Actiontec DSL modem with built-in wireless capability (802.11b/g.) I’ve also got a wireless card–802.11g–for my PC that I’m not using. I’ve run about 30 feet of phone cord to connect the modem to my one phone jack. I’m also still thinking of getting a network adapter for my PS2. Now, I can use the built-in LAN bridge on my computer to hook up the PS2–a capability I didn’t have last year when I bought the D-Link router–but I would rather hook the PS2 into the DSL modem and then use wireless capability to get the connection to my computer, especially since I’d have to run 50 feet or so of cat5 cable to make the initial link. Of course, I’d have to first have to enable the wireless connectivity from the computer and then lock it down as soon as I got a wireless connection after making the switch. But can I have the main connection point be the PS2 instead of the PC?
Huh? Unless Comcast uses those router\modem combo thingies and requires users to use the router’s DHCP on the LAN side… how can they possibly know how many devices are connect to their network? On the other hand, if they’re issuing standard cable modems to users and if they can see past your router… well, something’s seriously wrong with your firewall\router. The whole point of having a router is for NAT, and by definition a NAT device appears as one device on a WAN.
Of course, Comcast can determine that certain types of devices are in use on your network - VoIP phones, for example - but for the most part, TCP\IP is TCP\IP. I suppose that Comcast could employ some high-end analysis of your Internet traffic and determine that one person in your household collects guns and another collects Beanie Babies, or that one person collects both guns and Beanie Babies… but such analysis is expensive, time consuming, not likely to engender customer goodwill (except for users suspected in kiddie porn, identity theft, etc.).
And even if you do need a static IP address visible to the outside world – if you’re, say, running a web server out of your house, or using that voice communications thingy they use on World of Warcraft sometimes – you can usually get away with using NAT.
Hey, that’s nothin’.
Before we got DSL last winter, we had three computers in our house all sharing one 56K dial-up Internet connection.
Thomson Speedtouch 330
Ahh, the cheap trashy ‘free modem’ of choice. I’d have guessed this was what you had. The only way to share the connection with these is via the computer into which it’s plugged. As mentioned earlier, a crossover cable is all that’s needed (assuming both computers have Ethernet ports) - and if you have XP on both, it’ll pretty much figure out everything itself once you’ve plugged it in. The other step is to enable the remote computer to use the Speedtouch connection - go into its Properties in Network Connections, and enable ‘allow other computers to access the internet via this connection’, or whatever the exact wording is. It’s possible you’ll also have to set your firewall to allow this, but if you’re using the built-in firewall it should be OK.
You would think by now some one would have made a router that was a USB host to connect to these modems by now. Unfortunatly a quick search did not turn anything up.