Routers

[mofo]

Howdy. I want to set up a small home network with 3 or 4 computers. I want internet access on all of them. I understand a router lets you do that while only paying for one cable connection with my ISP. First question is, will i notice a considerably slower speed compared to only using one machine with that connection? Also, what is the difference between a router and a hub? Can't you also connect all the PC's to the internet via a hub? thanks.

[mofo]

oh and you only need a cable modem attached to the machine with the router, right? the others only need a 10/100 card?

[HAL9000]

A router does just that, it routes the traffic to each machine. Each machine is assigned an IP address through the routers DHCP server. Because of this, the router also acts as a firewall. A hub simply connects each machine for networking capability. You can share internet with a hub, but only if you can get separate IP addresses from your ISP for each machine. There would more than likely be an additional charge for the extra IP addresses while the router is only going to use the one, so no extra charges. When you set up the router, all machines are cabled to the router and the cable modem plugs into the uplink port on the router. The router then takes on all of the settings that you would normally have put into your computer and each computer is set to obtain an IP address automatically.

[Confused]

And your second post is correct. Card for each to hook to the explanation Hal gave. Also they would each run at same speed. Obliviously if you ran a big download on all at same time the speed would be impacted.
Chas

[mofo]

that's great, thanks