Sharing NTL Broadband Connection

Hi

My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband provided
via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable television.
I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using either
an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience with
copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what NTL and
their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to share this
connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?

Cheers - Andy

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:39:10 +0100, Andy wrote:

> Hi
>
> My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband provided
> via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable television.
> I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using either
> an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience with
> copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what NTL and
> their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to share this
> connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?
>
> Cheers - Andy

Hi

You will need a router to share this connection with multiple computers as
NTL only provide one public IP address.

Visit the NTL or Routers forums at www.cm-forums.co.uk for some info and
friendly help. :-)

Regards

Bill

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Andy@?.?.invalid writes
>My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband provided
>via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable television.
>I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using either
>an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience with
>copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what NTL and
>their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to share this
>connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?

It depends where you are as the equipment ntl: provides seems to vary
geographically and over time. Here I have a ntl:home 120 cable modem,
which gives both USB and RJ45 outputs, which both work fine. Currently
I have my cable modem feeding an ethernet router/4-way switch. I find
this arrangement works well, as each PC can be using the Internet
independently of all the others.

--
John Blundell
Reply-to: address is valid.
Antispam From: address

Hi Andy
I share my broadband connection only to two pc's, but I use a linksys
cable/dsl router as suggested by NTL - bought it from pcworld. It works
wonderfully and was very easy to set up.

Hope this helps
regards
Patricia
"phoenix" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1lwn5al6adyya.3sk8n26d87xt$.(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:39:10 +0100, Andy wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband
provided
> > via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable
television.
> > I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using
either
> > an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience
with
> > copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what
NTL and
> > their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to
share this
> > connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?
> >
> > Cheers - Andy
>
> Hi
>
> You will need a router to share this connection with multiple computers as
> NTL only provide one public IP address.
>
> Visit the NTL or Routers forums at www.cm-forums.co.uk for some info and
> friendly help. :-)
>
> Regards
>
> Bill

Andy wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband provided
> via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable television.
> I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using either
> an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience with
> copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what NTL and
> their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to share this
> connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?

NTL provide only one IP address and the assignment is by DHCP - the STB
acts as a DHCP server (actually a relay for the one at NTL I guess).

So you need a router which can:

Get its external address by DHCP;

Perform NAT (Network Address Translation) on behalf of its clients;

Preferably includes a configurable firewall (although NAT in itself is
quite a strong firewall, as no unsolicited traffic can get in to the
network behind it unless specifically forwarded on the router).

Optionally, also act as a DHCP server on its internal interface to avoid
having to configure the clients manually.

I use one I built myself for nothing out of old PC bits which were lying
around and OpenBSD (a free operating system with a strong bias towards
security and therefore a good firewall). But most off the shelf routers
should be able to do all this and also be easy to set up. They're pretty
cheap these days. Linux is also a good option as long as it's a modern
distro with a 2.4 kernel, the firewall wasn't very good before that.

You'll also need a hub or switch, usually a switch nowadays as they're
more efficient and also cheap now. The difference shows mainly when
there's high traffic on the LAN itself - I would expect a fair amount of
gaming in a student house so it's probably worthwhile. Some routers have
an inbuilt 4 port switch, but I have not heard of one with more. So if
there are 5 clients, you'll probably need a separate 8 port switch.

Some NTL cable modems require a crossover cable and some don't. If a
crossover is required it clearly says so by the ethernet port. If it
doesn't then it needs a straight through one. NTL support are quite
clueless if you ask them about this, but that's about par for the course
for all ISPs.

Regards, Ian

I use a wireless network using NTL via cable modem... no problems with
it... (Linsys wireless G broadband routet)..
I was looking yesterday and it seems NTL is actually doinga deal with
linsys..

Have a look at http://www.ntlworld.com/linksys/

CP


On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:39:10 +0100, Andy wrote:

>Hi
>
>My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband provided
>via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable television.
>I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using either
>an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience with
>copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what NTL and
>their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to share this
>connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?
>
>Cheers - Andy

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not kicking and screaming like those in the back
of his car....

But have you seen the price!? £99 for the USB adapter is taking the p*** a
bit. It's half that from most online retailers (e.g. www.amazon.co.uk).

NTL/BEFW11S4 is a nice way to link things together though - very easy to set
(10 minutes - honestly!). Any tips on increasing the range of a BEFW11S4
box? I can't find anywhere that sell Linksys wireless signal boosters in the
UK, and don't know what antenna to use otherwise.

Can anyone point me toward sites on how to set up 'repeater' stations? This
is bridging, isn't it? What I'd like is a simple way to wirelessly relay an
NTL connection a long way through two buildings - can I set up Linksys kit
to do this?

Thanks,

Hywel

"Captain Paraletic" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I use a wireless network using NTL via cable modem... no problems with
> it... (Linsys wireless G broadband routet)..
> I was looking yesterday and it seems NTL is actually doinga deal with
> linsys..
>
> Have a look at http://www.ntlworld.com/linksys/
>
> CP
>
>
> On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:39:10 +0100, Andy wrote:
>
> >Hi
> >
> >My daughter is moving into a house for Uni soon which has NTL Broadband
provided
> >via a single ethernet connection from the back of the box for cable
television.
> >I want to prepare to share the connection between 4 or 5 computers using
either
> >an ethernet hub or possibly a wireless AP. I have reasonable experience
with
> >copper networking and some wireless networking but know nothing of what
NTL and
> >their equipment provide. Can anyone advise me what I will need to share
this
> >connection or direct me to a site where I can find out?
> >
> >Cheers - Andy
>
> I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
> not kicking and screaming like those in the back
> of his car....