Sharing an NTL Connection over a LAN??

Sparx

Hi All,

I've been considering getting broadband for a while now, and last night NTL rang me to ask if I wanted to avail of their special offer, which is a 12 month contract. It's basically their 150 service for €15 for 9 months, then €30 for the remaining three months of the 12 month contract. Before I accept, I want to know if I can connect it to both my PCs.

Anyway, I have two machines - one with XP Home and an older one with 98 SE. The two machines are connected via an ethernet hub at the moment. My question is whether or not I can share the NTL internet access between the two. The NTL FAQ seems to suggest I can, but I haven't much of a clue of how to go about it or what's involved.

Has anyone done this already? Does anyone know how to? Any help would be appreciated...

Thanks,

Sparx

Mutant_Fruit

By the sounds of it, you are 90% there already. Just make sure the modem you get is ethernet (and i believe NTL modems do come with ethernet capibilities) and all you should have to do is plug it in to your existing hub, and it should work. You may have to set a few settings etc, but it should be grand.

Ripwave

This question was asked and answered just yesterday. In fact, the thread was updated only a couple of hours ago.

Did you not bother to read the posts already in the forum?

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
By the sounds of it, you are 90% there already. Just make sure the modem you get is ethernet (and i believe NTL modems do come with ethernet capibilities) and all you should have to do is plug it in to your existing hub, and it should work. You may have to set a few settings etc, but it should be grand.

No, it won't work if you just plug it into your hub. The NTL modem only has a single IP address, and it doesn't act as a router, so you can't share it between two machines.

Sparx

Thanks for the replies...

Ripwave, I had indeed read through the other posts and had seen the one you linked to. However, it wasn't clear that the the original poster was trying to do the same thing as me. In addition, it's not a trivial matter to wade through the jargon and acronyms used when you're as clueless as I am....

From reading the other thread a few times, it appears that what I need is an ethernet router, rather than a hub - does this sound correct? I'm guessing I just need to plug the cable model into the router and hey presto...

Thanks again,

Sparx

Ripwave

Originally posted by Sparx
From reading the other thread a few times, it appears that what I need is an ethernet router, rather than a hub - does this sound correct? I'm guessing I just need to plug the cable model into the router and hey presto...

You'll need to verify this with one of the people actually using NTL. The key question is whether you need to install some sort of "dialler", or software on your PC to "log in" to the NTL network. I'm fairly certain that you don't, but if you do, then you'd have to solve the problem of getting logged in through the router.

(Most "broadband" routers, that can be used with ADSL or cable, have built in ADSL client software, so that the router can log in for you, and you don't need to install client software on your PC. The don't usually have any cable specific client software, so I assume it's not needed. Again, you'd have to confirm with an NTL user).

Once the "login" issue is sorted out, a €50 router will handle everything in a totally transparent manner - automatic IP address allocation to any machines plugged into it, and totally transparent sharing of the connection.

(P2P apps don't seem to handle plug-and-play very well, and may need manual configuration of your router for optimum performance, but that's a question for another day).

MoSeS_.

Router is the job alright but there is a bit of configuration involved with them.
A router with a built in firewall is probably a good idea, a bit more configuration required here.

If you didn't want to splash out on hardware there is the following option:
I'm not sure about this, but :
Cable and Adsl modems typically come with ethernet and USB connections.
If the cable modem was connected to the XP machine via USB should it not be possible to use Internet Connection Sharing [ICS] to provide internet access to the other machine and any other machines you connect to the hub.

For more information on Internet Connection Sharing look here
There are a few diagrams here
If you go Start->Help->Index and type Internet connection Sharing
you will also find info on how to enable and configure it.

I have an A7N8X Deluxe motherboard which has 2 NICs one I have attached to the ADSL modem and the other I have attached with a crossover cable to another machine.
Using internet connection sharing I can surf on both.

Using USB I imagine it is possible to achieve this with only 1 NIC thus avoiding any additional hardware expense such as an extra NIC or more expensive again a router.

I think 98 has ICS as well so it doesn't matter which machine you connect the modem to.

In this event you would want a software Firewall such as Tiny Personal Firewall installed on each machine. You could also use the firewall built into Windows XP but this only blocks incoming traffic it doesn't block or notify you of any inadvertently installed spyware which might be sending information about you.

Once you get broadband you are going to need antivirus software more than ever ,because it's so easy to download software there is an increased likleyhood of getting infected, especially if using p2p applications.

You can get free antivirus software here .
This one is free for personal use and updates its signatures regularly.

My advice is :
1. Once the broadband is installed first off make sure the firewall is setup right, set it to its most restrictive and unblock ports as you need to.
2. Once you can surf get your hands on antivirus software and get the latest virus signatures.
3. Finally run windows update and install all those patches to minimise the amount of damage that can be done if the firewall doesn't do its job.

Right, I'd better go do some work.