Yeah their business web site is a pile of poo. Looks like they've bought an off the site web store; caught me out once when I ordered a product that the site said would be delivered in 4 days, hadn't turned up 4 weeks later and my account had been billed. Took 3 phone calls to finally get it sorted out, in the mean time I was subject to a number of nasty letters

Try ordering MS Project via their web site..... Took me ages to find it. Found the upgrade at first attempt just not the full version

CT: I'd recommend Linksys for your broadband router. I've one of their Fast Ethernet switches and it works a treat on my (little) server farm, ended up buying a second in case of failure (not happened in 12months).

Interestingly NTL have started their BB service in Watford. I was interested (1mb/s up/down stream) multi-machine account, seemed an absolute bargin. When I ran our residential customer service last I was on hold for 2 hours and our set top box keeps loosing it's interactive services. Bet your business service, I'm not....

 

Actually I've been looking at their gear via the link that Dinsdale provided above. It looks really neat stuff.

http://www.linksys.com/Products/pro...grid=23&prid=20

 

Hi Cedric, looks like you have already had some good advice here, so just adding my 0.02 Euro's worth

Both Telewest and NTL where they offer a cable modem with a single IP address package have the ability to limit you to one device behind the cable modem. When they allocate you an IP address using DHCP, they track both the individual cable modem identity AND the ethernet MAC address (hardware identity) of the PC that requested the address. If you try to disconnect your PC and try another with a different MAC address, their system can see that the request is coming from behind a cable modem that has already had an address allocated and will reject it. I believe with both of them, they 'lease' IP addresses from their DHCP servers for 48 hours, so you would have to disconnect one PC, wait for 48 hours and then try your other PC

The way to 'improve the behaviour' here is as has been suggested, purchase a low cost router that can sit behind the cable modem, the router should have a number of ethernet ports, one to connect to the modem and some for connecting your PC's to etc.

Key thing here is the device MUST be a router, do not buy a cheap ethernet hub or bridge device as this will not get round the single IP address issue (simple hubs / bridges will simply still pass the MAC address of the PC though, so the DHCP servers will still see more than one MAC address requesting an IP address and reject it)

The router will act as a local DHCP server to your PC's and will request an IP address from the cable networks DHCP servers - it then uses a process called NAT (network addres translation) or PAT (port address translation) to convert from the local IP addresses allocated by the router to the address allocated by the cable company.

Key thing is you get to connect a number of devices and Telewest / NTL only see one IP address being used.

Whilst I work for Cisco, I would not use one of our products as they are too expensive for home usage. Products like the Linksys product are proably more appropriate.

Only thing to consider then is configuring the router - they are not plug and play and may require some configuration work that someone on the list looks like they have already done and could maybe help you with.

I'll put my anorak back on now

 

Here's my solution. My cable modem's network connection plugs into a Netgear wireless hub. This has both wired and wireless connections, and acts as the router. One PC has a wired connection. The other has a wireless connection. And I've a wireless card for the laptop. I can sit in front of the TV surfing

Wasn't silly money either - as others have posted a hub/router isn't expensive these days.

-Brian.

 

There are a few other alternatives to the linksys router, all of which provide similar functions, so it's worth keeping an eye on the price.

Another one that is well regarded is the SMC Barricade. This product can act as a print server as well (not of interest to me).

http://www.smc-europe.com/english/products/broad.html

Pete

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bmarshall
[B]Here's my solution. My cable modem's network connection plugs into a Netgear wireless hub. This has both wired and wireless connections, and acts as the router. One PC has a wired connection. The other has a wireless connection. And I've a wireless card for the laptop. I can sit in front of the TV surfing

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pgainham
[B]Hi Cedric, looks like you have already had some good advice here, so just adding my 0.02 Euro's worth

 

I use a SMC wireless router.. four wired ports, 254 wireless (probably not, but in theory), and it works as a print server. Has WEP security, does DHCP so every machine gets its own IP address, and is a pretty good firewall with DMZ capabilities. I have had five or six machines on it without problem, all served form my one DSL (or cable) modem on my one account where I only pay for one IP address.

 

Here's what I did....

Got my main pc at home connected to the cable modem via usb port. this was a dodle to do and it worked first time. Then got a really cheap hub (netgear) and connected it to the PC's network port.

Then used the windows "internet connection sharing) wizard and established that the PC was the connection to the internet. This wizard then produces a floppy disk.....

I then connected the laptop to the hub..booted it, inserted the floppy, double clicked on the setup icon, one quick reboot, and that was that. job done! for once widows did as it says on the can.

Total cost about 50 quid!

The only downside is that I have to have the pc running if i want to use the laptop on the net, but for me thats no problem.

M.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by awinskill
[B]

CT: