[Great_One]

Bob:

multiple home computers/cable connection is a lan/wan setup so the same
priciples apply. You could build an nt server to act as a router for a
T-1 connection (but why?). Hardware solutions can tend to be faster than software solutions and with their task specific function, more stable. I have a 2-server, 3 client setup at home that i connect to the internet through dial-up. I could use either the win2k server or the linux server to handle the dial-up,instead I use a hardware product to handle that function (web ramp). That way i dont have to worry about the server being down or some other software problem affecting other users. Besides the extra feature of nat and firewalling, and dhcp would make it simpler for most home users. yes all this could be done in any OS using software, but the setup would be more dificult.