broadband for 5

[p_walsh44]

hey,
I have in a flat with 4 other mates.we all wanna get broadband and i was wondering if it was possible to get one connection to the flat and split it to each of our computers through a hub or somethin.
We'll need a pretty fast connection i would expect as 5 will be sharing.We live in manchester UK, is the anything you'd recommend getting?
How much will it cost n what sort of equipment will we need?

Be grateful for a reply

cheers

[Nick]

If you can get cable then they do up to 2 megabit broadband, but thats the download speed, ot the upload, which I *think* is 500k.

Rather than get yerself a modem, get a router for the actual BB link into the house, then plug everyones PCs into that. That way you dont have to rely on a particular PC to be on and running to access the net through it.

How big a pipe you need depends on what you'll be doing with it. If you or your mates want to being using certain services that will hog your bandwidth, such as Kazaa, then go for a nice big pipe, if its just surfing then 512k BB will be fine.

If its a combination of gaming, surfing and dowloading then go for the biggest pipe you can afford, but check the providers policies on downloads as some of them cap how much data you can download in a certain amount of time, they seem to take exception to heavy users hogging the bandwidth they pay for.

[Gubs]

Once you've decided on a connection, I would put Smoothwall (www.smoothwall.org) or Clarkconnect (www.clarkconnect.com) on an old PII or similar, to give you a firewall & router, going into a hub/switch to split off the connection to each of your computers. Substitute a standalone router if you don't have an old machine lying around, but that'll cost you more, and you won't (afaik) be able to limit the bandwidth available to Kazaa-lovers who might rape it.

[Nick]

Gubs is right about limiting bandwidth hogs, but (and I may be wrong here), don't most routers come with firewalls anyway?

(That's a question I'd like answering as I've just spent an hour reconfiguring my gateway machine after changing everything for a lan and I'm thinking a router might be the way forward )

[p_walsh44]

how much is a router gonna cost tho?
we're only students n dont wanna pay loads to set it up.We havent got an old pc to set up a gateway either.

[Trickle]

2mb cable solutions usually only have 256K upload unless you go for the business packages. For DSL with bulldog you can again chose to pay for >256 upload but it will cost you.

If you know where to go to get files off IRC, DCC hubs or subsription newsgroups or if you download alot of ligitimate, I dont know, movie trailers or something, then by all means go 2mb. But otherwise there isnt much point going >1mb as file sharing programs tend to be limited by the 256K upload so you wont see much difference going 2mb.

Most peeps I know in houses sharing a net conenction go 1mb.

[Flibb]

You can get a basic router with 1 port for around £45 maybe a tad less if you look around. But you will need to plug this in to a hub to get the 5 connections you want, this will be around £20. Dont forget network cards if you havent allready got them and cables. This is the basic setup I have and havent had any problems, just run a firewall on each machine and antivirus. Any of the big vendors should sell what you need, but there are some adsl specific sellers on
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/
Hope that helps
Jon

PS This system is very easy to set up in XP and is great for keeping anti virus etc up to date as you dont have to log in its allways on.

[Trickle]

Hmm, I'm having trouble finding a 5 port (both DSL and normal) router on Ebuyer. They seem to all be 4 port ones. Not that I'm suggesting you buy from Ebuyer, you realise - I'm just looking for rock bottom price as a guideline. You may find some ISP's doing kit at a decent price. Often people new to networking and computers can be better of going for kit recommended by their ISP even if they pay a bit more because the isp support line may be willing to help you out configuring it to get it working or to trouble shoot it when it doesnt. Depends upon the ISP.

I'm afraid I'm not currently clued up on which is the best router to buy. You would need to do a bit of shopping around. I wouldnt even necessarily trust sites like adslguide.org at first glance as sometimes the reviews will be out of date, and people on their forums can be either clueless, biased or sheeplike.

If you are familiar with installing computer stuff and dont mind doing some forum and FAQ page questing then you should be ok buying anything these days as long as it has a brand name. I suppose even then you have to be careful - netgear advertise 24 hour free help lines, but they have outsourced to India, natch = I wont buy anything from them ever again.

[Trickle]

Again, I'm not suggesting you buy ebuyer, but you may want to consider doing this:

Buy ethernet DSL 1 port router = £30 + shipping. [relistic price from a branded manufacture probably higher]
And a 5 port switch to plug into it = £25+ shipping.

You may be better just buying a 4 port integrated (DSL) router and just sharing the connection for the 5th PC (will requite one of the others to be switch on for the 5th to work, though)

If you are going cable, then you will need a 'cable router' or router where the blurb doesnt mention DSL - otherwise the same applies. You have to add the price of cabling on top of this + network cards for peeps who's comps dont already have them.

For wireless the same pretty much applies to the above, except you buy a wireless DSL 4 port router and just have the 5th machine share the connection with another machine by standard cable and NICs (network cards). Obviously you save on buying cable, but the wireless NICS are expensive + you probably dont already have any + your home network speed is slower than with ethernet cable.

You always have the option of just having 1 PC turned on 24/7 with a normal USB modem, buying a 5 port £20 switch and letting that PC share the conenction. This is basicall what the others above ment when they said you could find an old machine to do this - however there is nothing stopping you letting a normal machine do this. The only problem is if you want to reboot - the other peeps lose their connection.

[Paul Adams]

I would agree with Trickle's last post - get a broadband router and a separate 100Mbps switch.

Broadband router takes the public IP address and hides your LAN from the Internet, giving you a little protection (sometimes called a "NAT firewall" mistakenly).

This won't apportion the bandwidth per PC, however, it's all available to all users - only really important if you have latency-sensitive users like online gamers - then you are looking at a 6th PC to run ClarkConnect (?) or something.

If you are in Manchester, I believe you are on NTL and I don't think they have the 2Mbps cable service yet, 1Mbps is as high as they go (I might be wrong, I haven't used the cable service in over a year, and recently kicked NTL digital TV & phone into touch).

[5lab]

you'd need a 6port hub - if your not needing gaming or lots of file movement a 8 port 10baseT hub will be fine - costs around £15 - then a 1port router

[Flibb]

OOOO well spoted 5lab, 5 porter wouldnt have anyplace to plug in the router. Maybe get a 8port, not much more and leaves someplace to plug other kit into. I have a spare slot or 2 for upgrading other peoples PC's on, nice and easy to get patches just plug it in and away you go.
Flibb

[Trickle]

Doh.

[p_walsh44]

cheers for the info guys. Theres no ntl where we're living.If we're getting BB will we need to connect up our phoneline?can u recommend on suppliers of BB.Theres no ntl or telewest near us.

As i said we havent got a spare pc to use.We prob will be using it on kazaa n maybe me for gaming so u think the 1mb is the best option?

I've check out those hubs n switches n we will need an 8 port one.Are those the ones u recommend tickle?What does everyone else think?

When u say dsl n cable, is that the same as BB? I've only been a dail upper so far.

What if i got yhe stuff from scan.co.uk....thats where i get all my computer stuff from.
We'll all need to by cards aswell, are they just ethernet cards.Theres 2PC's n 3laptops that will be usin it...the laptops will already have the connection i presume.

sorry to blabber on guys, ur a great help tho

[c0w]

what cable provider is in manchester NTL or Blueyonder. thats a first.

next if you can only get ntl then don't go for cable they only offer 1 meg services not enough for 5 people. if blueyonder then yes they do 2meg service this mite just work.

if it's ntl then you gotta go for the dsl type of internet.
the one i was looking at last time was eclipse 2meg service if you pay quaterly then you can get it for something like £60 odd. which aint bad for 2meg.

next is how are your gonna share the connection. now routers are good but if your on a budget then i would scap that idea and go with Gubs idea with the linux distro and smoothwall, if you know linux then i would suggest going for shorewall. my prefered but it's a wee bit trickier than smoothwall.

so little cheapy box 2 network cards anda switch and point everyones gateway to the little cheapie's box ip or setup dhcp and the linux box will assign your ip and yours away.

=)
easy

c0w

[Gubs]

If we're getting BB will we need to connect up our phoneline?can u recommend on suppliers of BB.Theres no ntl or telewest near us.
I know nothing about cable, but if you decide to go for ADSL, then www.adslguide.org.uk is a good place to work out which provider to go for. For ADSL you will need a working phoneline, yes.

We prob will be using it on kazaa n maybe me for gaming so u think the 1mb is the best option?
I'd think 1mb is enough but it's up to you what you'll be happy with - and what you can afford. If you are going to be using Kazaa seriously, watch out for monthly download quotas as well; I gather they're fairly common on 1-2mb lines? eg. I remember reading about a 1mb line with a 150GB monthly cap, which when spread out evenly 24/7 for the whole month is the equivalent of a 512k line.

When u say dsl n cable, is that the same as BB? I've only been a dail upper so far.
I believe "broadband" is defined as 150kbps upwards. Cable and DSL are just different ways to get fast connections.

We'll all need to by cards aswell, are they just ethernet cards.Theres 2PC's n 3laptops that will be usin it...the laptops will already have the connection i presume.
Most modern motherboards have built-in Ethernet ports, so check your computers before you buy, but yes all you would need is an Ethernet card - a cheapo one like this one at ebuyer would be fine: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=31095
I'd expect modern laptops to have it built-in as well, but if you need to buy a card then you may want to go wireless. If I'd splashed out on a laptop I'd want to be able to move it round the house without losing my internet connection. At the end of the day it all comes down to your budget, of course