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Tech: Networking a cable modem
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Subject: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:10 PM I've installed networks, but have no experience with cable access. So.... We use cable as our ISP (Cableone is the company) as well as for our TV. This works fine here in the duplex, although we only have one computer hooked up to it right now. But in the house, we'll have two computers going and I want to have both hooked up to the cable interface. I intend to buy my own cable modem, and I have a Bay Stack 4-port hub, cat 5 cables, etc. Here are the questions: 1. Do I also need a cable router? If so, would I be correct in assuming the sequence would be modem -> router -> hub? 2. I want to split the cable connection (at the cable equivalent of the demarc) so that part goes to the TV and part goes to the Internet. How do I do this? Will a simple splitter work, or will I need some special sort of thing? 3. What else do I need to know? We'll be continuing on DHCP (at least until IPv6 becomes standard), so IP addressing shouldn't be a problem. Thanks! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: GUEST,Chris Newman Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:18 PM Not sure I can help with all your questions, but here goes. We have broadband cable coming into the house that's fed into the back of a router that clones the MAC address that the cable company recognises. Therefore any computer plugged into the router has instant access courtesy of the cloned address. It all works really well, although I have no idea how to split the TV/internet cable. We have a Telewest box on the wall out of which comes the two separate cables. It's worth it though, so keep perservering. Good luck! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: mack/misophist Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:22 PM I have DSL, not cable, so this may not really apply. With the same kind of set-up, a router was necessary. Does the modem function as a router? DHCP implies one box is a gateway for the other. With most routers, they provides the DHCP and the 2 machines can be independent. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Homeless Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:29 PM There are two basic kinds of routers for home use. One type is designed to have a hub plugged into it, and all the computers plug into the hub. The other kind has multiple ports on the router itself for computers to plug into. This allows everyone internet access, but does not give any networking. Also, a problem we had when hooking a router up to our DSL was that the modem would connect to a 10/100 card, but would not connect to the router. Since we didn't get the router from the ISP, they wouldn't support it. Both the modem company and the router company said it wasn't their problem. We eventually figured out the problem ourselves. (The problem was specific to that modem/firmware combination - it would only connect to a 100 mips device. A router is, of course, only 10 mips.) We got around that problem by putting a packet switcher between the modem and router. I'm not suggesting that you'll have this problem, only that sometimes weird things can go wrong. And the other time I've hooked up a DSL connection, everything went fine. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:46 PM Rapaire, I have a more simple setup, DSL serving two computers. I have a filter on the phone line, so there is no interference with calls, and since the filter is out on the pole, I don't need to filter each phone. With cable I would do what I'm doing now, go wireless. If you look at the equipment available, you'll see that most of it is built for both DSL and cable. Look around in some of the computer stores (or if you don't have any nearby, visit places like CompuUSA and Fry's Electronics, where you'll find equipment that fits all sorts of configurations. Visit places like ZD Net (Ziff Davis) for a more techie review and Amazon for the average user's review. For me, it would have been overkill to go with the faster 802.11g router and cards, because my DSL can't deliver it that fast, it never will be able to. So the 810.11b is fine and costs less. I have a combination of equipment from Netgear and Linksys. We're very happy with the outcome. I don't know what speed the cable delivers the information to your house, so the b or g option would need research. And cable needs a phoneline for outgoing data. The companies selling net gear have good customer service folks if you're stymied in installation. It isn't too difficult, but I had to call to figure out how to get the router to find the signal (turns out there is a "wizard" that does it for you). I got the horselaugh when I called Earthlink first to ask for assistance, and they said some unhelpful things about my choices. Why? Because they want me to pay them $10 a month to use their router equipment for as long as I have DSL. With the rebates and such, I will have paid off the router and card in under a year, but when the internet providers supply the service and equipment, you keep on paying. (I've otherwise had very good service from Earthlink, but I made sure to tell them what I thought of the tactics of their tech when I asked for assistance.) As for the question of a splitter, I think you need a line that goes to the computer alone, just as you need a line that goes to the television alone so you have a full-strength signal to both. The cable company will probably install it as if they are putting in service for two televisions, and will split or boost it at the time of installation. If you're doing it yourself, I would suggest poking around at Radio Shack and ask them about a booster, etc. It's probably a better system to pay for two rooms. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:46 PM I suspect that I'll have to get a router, since right now all I have is a modem and the hub doesn't work when placed between the modem and the two PCs (both running XP, by the way, one XP Pro and one XP Home). If so, I'll get one that works with either cable or DSL, in case we switch. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:55 PM I've read the other answers--Homeless made a good point--my router is set to serve five computers total. It plugs directly into the main computer and I could do hard wire or wireless for the rest. I have only one additional computer on it now but have debated connecting my old laptop (though it's hardly worth the price of the card). If you compare the equipment at the time you buy it, be sure that it is all rated the same. I have a Netgear router and the only wireless network adapter card that Fry's had that would work with it was the Linksys Wireless-B network adapter. (Others were out of stock). You can mix and match companies, just don't mix and match network adapter systems. Stick with B or G exclusively. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 01 Jan 04 - 09:03 PM Actually, I was going to go wireless -- wireless network, wireless speakers -- and then discovered that they, like the wireless phones we have, use the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequencies. I wasn't worried so much about security (that can be set) as I was about telephone interference from the wireless speakers, which have no IEEE standards as wireless nets do. So, for the time being, we've hardwired two rooms with Cat 5e so that we can put each computer into the net. I've chucked the idea of wireless speakers and will be installing a good set of wired ones. Anyone know if a single RCA/coax plug in a jack labeled "phono" can broadcast through a whole-house (NuTone) intercom/AM-FM radio system from 1968? (he asked, tongue firmly in cheek). |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Amos Date: 01 Jan 04 - 09:34 PM Rap: Personally I suggest you get CAT5 well established first and THEN add wireless. 1. Cable Modem to Router 2. Router to Hub 3. As many devices off hub as you want (computers, laser printer, etc.) The cable DHCP assigns ONE IP Number to the whole net via the cable modem. The router then distributes the traffic to sub-nets using pseudo-numbers for sub-nets. When you get an Airport device it can plug into the hub and any device with a card should be able to switch off to wireless. A |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 01 Jan 04 - 10:12 PM And.... FIREWALLS??????
Sincerely,
No personal opinion opted at this opportunity because that may affect/effect the OG's immediate-time opinion ratings on the MC's flame of fame... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 01 Jan 04 - 10:19 PM Gargoyle, both machines are protected by Norton Personal Firewall and NAV (and I keep both updated). I want to buy a router with a built-in firewall (if I can afford it) as well. Far too many bad hats out there for my taste. As my brother said when he bought a gun safe, "I might not be able to stop 'em, but I can sure make 'em work for it." |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:47 AM It still works? One of the pleasures of home-ownership in the particular house that I bought is that the attic is a wide-open space and wiring is easy. Okay, you still have to pull cable and fish around for it, but movement is easy and you can make a plan that works well and keeps the future climbing at a minimum. I'm doing the cable and phones in a star pattern, so that all of the ends are in one place, no daisy chains like in days of old. You could easily do that with speaker wire. I will be running some speaker wire to a couple of rooms in the house and a line out to the garage. I have my father's great receiver (older but still digital and has tons of connectors on the back). I'll use the A/B speakers switch so I can listen to it out in the garage or in the back of the house. I am a rover when it comes to television--I treat it more like radio. So if I put a movie on I can run it through the receiver and listen to the sound track as I work and occasionally stick my head in the room with the telly to take a look at the picture. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:55 AM Re: firewalls--My router does a very good job of blocking a lot of the crud that used to regularly set off my Norton Personal Firewall before I put in the router. Seeing how well it works, I would in future put one in even if I didn't have to route anything else, just for that added protection. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 02 Jan 04 - 07:27 AM That old NuTone system works fine -- I was surprised, to say the least! I'll have to wire a speaker to the basement, but that's no big deal. The suspended ceiling in the basement makes running cable and wire a breeze (now that you won't be electrocuted doing so). |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Dave the Gnome Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:10 AM We have had cable TV and broadband for ages now. Previously I used one PC as a gateway. Ie - 2 network cards. 1 to the cable box (combined TV and broadband) and one to a 100Mb switch. Cat 5 cabling from the switch to various points in the house where other machines could be plugged in. Works fine with the right firewall and internet connection sharing software. Drawback is that if the gateway PC needs to go down for any reason we all lost web connectivity. So, when we moved last year, I decided to upgrade. I have gone for a wireless system. Wireless router connected directly to the cable box. It has 3 or 4 RJ45 ports as well. Wireless NICs in all the other PC's. Works a treat. The router itself is a hardware firewall and seems to be very effective. I would certainly recommend the wireless solution to anyone. On the one I have you can change the frequency at which it works in case of interference btw. At the moment I am running at 11Mbps but the cards are capable of 100Mbps when I upgrade the router. Mind you I am in no hurry to do that. 11Mbps seems to be ample for home use - the 'bottleneck', if any, would be the 600K broadband connection. Hope it all works as well for you Rapaire:-) Cheers DtG |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: MartinRyan Date: 04 Jan 04 - 12:18 PM Much of Ireland is still in the Dark Ages, one way or another, so my (related ) problem is this: I'm trying to set up a wireless arrangement at home to share/distribute internet access to 2 Windows laptops. Since, for now, all I have is 56k Dial-up, I'm trying to use an old laptop (dead screen) as hub and Microsoft's ICS (Internet Connection Sharing. Has anyone successfully set up a similar system? If so, you might drop me a PM and I'll retreat into the foxhole. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 05 Jan 04 - 08:25 AM A 56K dialup? My in-laws, living just barely outside Washington DC, can get no faster dialup connection than 28.8 because the NEW building in which they live can't handle anything faster -- or rather, the wiring and building are new, but the local switching equipment is Stone Age. If you're doing dialup, Martin, I don't know if you can share via a network. I think you'd need a seperate phone connection for each PC. Or you could get one of those duplex phone plugs, the ones that allow two phone to share one phone outlet (RJ-11 in the US). Unless...no, a mux (multiplexer) doesn't, as far as I know, do outgoing. Besides, it would cost a bundle IF you could find one. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: WFDU - Ron Olesko Date: 05 Jan 04 - 10:24 AM I installed wireless on our computers last month. We have three PC's in our home, one is still using Windows98, the other WindowsME, and the new one WindowsXP. Two PC's are on the ground floor, the other on the second. We also have a wireless phone in the house. We have not had any issues with interference on any devices. The wireless PC's work like a charm and saved a ton of aggravation and wireing hassles. I really was quite surprised at how well they work. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: JohnInKansas Date: 05 Jan 04 - 11:48 AM Rapaire - and others interested For a simple Windows network, it is pretty easy to hook several computers (PCs) through a single dialup line. The modem in ONE PC connects to the telephone line, and shares the connection with any and all other PCs that connect to it via an ethernet LAN. The telephone line sees all the using computers as one, and the "master" computer assigns and switches messages to the "user" PCs. This is not a particularly elegant connection, but it's been built into Windows since at least Win98. (It was sort of there in Win95, but didn't seem to work even as well as in later versions.) Theoretically, when any of the "user" PCs wants to connect, the "master" computor will dial the connection for them. I've found that this works pretty well. The real problem is that when a "user" PC is on a connection that gets "dropped," the modem PC may not recognize that the link is gone, and may also "misplace" the user. It is sometimes necessary to go to the master PC, kill the connection, and "refresh" from the user PC to get things back up. In order for this to work, you need to have the whole bunch of PCs all on an ethernet LAN, as a WorkGroup. (Other kinds of LAN configurations might work, but I haven't tried any others.) Install Windows ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) on the ONE PC that has a modem connected to the phone line. Except for enabling ICS on the "host" computer, you set up all the internet stuff as if it were the only one using the connection. Since the host PC does the DHCP assignments for traffic on the LAN, and the built-in facility for this is very primitive, you can run into some problems if you have (as I do) other "addressable" equipment on the LAN. I have two printers on ethernet print servers that do occasionally get into the act. The workaround is to be sure that the "extra" ethernet stuff is all assigned as high an address as feasible, to keep it away from the more or less random addresses that the host choses to assign to the users. If you have multiple external devices (USB devices, perhaps) you can run into link-loops on your LAN. Win2K allows you to set protocols to handle this. WinXP does a very good job of setting things up for you automatically. Older, and lesser, OS versions can give you some real difficulties here, although such problems seem not to be too common. I have had this setup using Win98 in the host, but it didn't really get usable for me until the host was replaced with the current Win2K machine. (I had not really "worked" the problem with the earlier setup.) I have had as many as 7 PCs connected to the LAN at the same time, with Win95, Win98, Win2K, and WinXP in the "user" machines all at the same time. Any connected machine could use the shared connection. I don't recall ever having more than 4 "on the net" at the same time, and I believe that the specs say there is a limit of 8 "shares" for ICS due to the limited host DHCP abilities. Definitely not the "best" setup, but perfectly workable, especially if you're putting up with a POTS connection. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Jan 04 - 04:31 PM John, It sounds like in your case you're working with the existing stuff and have fashioned a network out of it. Anyone setting up a new system would be nuts to emulate something so complicated, and the equipment available will let them avoid it. I wanted to add a remark about the wireless router choice. Wireless routers are meant to operate within a household or on a property and can effectively reach perhaps 300 feet. That will more than reach the street out front of my house! It has a password and it needs to be set, or malicious folks cruising the neighborhood can tap into your network and even lock you out. You do have a reset button to remedy this, and as I tell you this I have to confess that I haven't set up a password yet, but I need to do it. You set up the password at the router then use the software for each card at the other computers to tell them what the password is. I think it was in a computer class I was taking recently when someone mentioned the wireless system set up in one area high school. The result was that in the evenings students doing homework would drive to the school parking lot, pull out their laptops, and work in their cars. Any passerby would see the glow from all of these computers in the cars. It could be like that here at the university library where I work, except that you can't park that close to the building most of the time. We have wireless set up on all of the floors, and my computer is the anchor (or whatever it is called) for the wireless system on this floor. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 05 Jan 04 - 06:18 PM I've always worked in situations where we had at a minimum a dedicated 56K line -- not a dialup. The dialups I've worked with involved POTS connections (several numbers) rolling over into a mux and from there into a port board. Otherwise, it's just been one PC, one modem, one connection. I assumed that was was wanted was a way to connect both PCs into a a dialup situation where the PCs could surf independently (if that makes sense). I'm glad to know what can be done, really. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: MartinRyan Date: 05 Jan 04 - 07:43 PM John That sound very like what I'm trying to do (two wireless PC's, one wired). As far as I can see, the problem arises when I try to set up ICS - at which stage the computers suddenly can't see each other any longer. Probably some confusion with the DHCP? Thanks for the help. I hope to spend some time at it again this week. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 01 Feb 04 - 10:21 PM Gargoyle, just for information: I went up on the cable modem yesterday, January 31, and by today had been attacked four times. The firewall stopped 'em dead. I had it before when I was on dialup, and I wouldn't be without one, either at home OR at work. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Feb 04 - 11:13 PM Rapaire, You'll find once you put in a router that you won't in general see any of those attacks. They're very useful items, routers, if only for the added security to your computer. Before my router, I was getting messages all of the time from the firewall that it was blocking various attacks, usually some kind of trojan horse thing sniffin' round my back door. . . SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Networking a cable modem From: Rapparee Date: 01 Feb 04 - 11:25 PM Just had another one. The first couple came through LA and Argentina, respectively. I'd have the router hooked up now, but there are some packet drop problems and so for right now I'm connected directly. I raised the security level from low to medium, and I'll go to high if I have to. |
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