Network question

[SharpHint]

Hi guys, just curious to know what the difference between routers and HUBs are. I have a 4 socket HUB here and my friend is going to set up a 3 computer network in her house using a DSL service. They were told they needed to get a router(I use a router on my network but I got the router for free). The router they were told they needed is 100$. I paid about 25$ for this HUB here that I want to give her but can they use the HUB to network 3 computers for DSL network? Any input appreciated.

Thanks,
Vince

[John Prophet]

You will need a router for sharing out the DSl.

But you can find the routers nowadays for less than $50 any day of the week at any officemax or office depot or staples or amazon.com.

A hub simply takes input and duplicates it to all the ports.

In a certain sense youd think that would work for sharing cable but it wont....because each computer on the cable needs an individual IP address...and in a nutshell that is what a home type router does....it takes the one IP address that your cable company issues to your DSL modem and splits it up and gives out a new IP address to each computer on your network.

The routers now usually include a 4 port switch...which is just a smarter version of a hub....so you can hook 4 computers to those 4 ports....OR...you can hook another hub or switch to one of those ports and further expand the network.

Most home type routers usually can work with up to 253 computers in the network....so if the friend ever wanted to expand to more comps, it is just a matter of getting another switch or hub and hooking it up coming from the router.

Home routers have WAN and LAN "sides"..the "WAN" side is basically just one port for the dsl or cable modem to hook to...the LAN side is usually 4 ports or more if you expand with other hubs or switches.

WAN=wide area network
LAN=local area network

JP

depends on the isp, some dont care how many computer you hook in your house.

but most allow only one computer per house, and charge extra 5 - 15 bucks for another ip address (computer)

a hub will only work to extend the network

a router is used to connect two networks together, and provide some protection for the computer behind it.

more on how a router works

you can basically use any router you want provided it supports boardband such as DSL

a nice cheap router

http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...161&pfp=BROWSE



to slow

[SharpHint]

Thanks for the info guys, helped a lot, gotta run to a couple stores and do some comparison shoppin for a router

Thanks,
Vince