Discussions so far appear to be centered around hubs but since true hubs
are just a means of connecting various machines on a LAN with no nat
abilities they will not work in this case without the public id's
mentioned. With a hub the ISP provides an IP address connections for
each machine on your LAN. A router, Linksys BEFSR11, 1 port in and 1
out to your cable/dsl modem, or BEFSR41 with 4 ports, for your LAN
computers, and 1 port out to your cable/dsl modem which will allow
connection to 4 machines. In this case your LAN will obtain all IP
addresses from the router while the router will obtain one IP address
from your ISP and to the ISP you will only have one machine online. If
you connect 1 port for a LAN machine to a larger switch or hub more
machines can be handled. The only difference between a switch and a hub
will be seen on your LAN when talking from one machine to another. If
you have 4 machines you will be able to have 2 "private connections"
between any combination of 2 machines running at full speed while with a
hub you will run at the speed of the network divided by the number of
machines connected. 10/100 running at 100 will give 25 as the network
speed or half the speed of a switch. When connecting to the internet
all machines will be sharing the 10 speed connection common to typical
cable/dsl modems. Costs of these items can vary but the BEFSR41 can be
obtained for $50 or less with sales appearing for various "old" models
of similar devices being as little as $10, I have one from Microcenter
in the LA area. 8 port switches, far preferred today due to
performance, can be obtain for $15. I don't know where you are located
but
www.microcenter.com,
www.acnt.com,
www.actirvine.com,
www.actcorona.com, etc. also
www.computeruser.com is a magazine through
which you can contact a number of Southern California suppliers or
possibly get ideas for contacting local suppliers in your area. On the
matter of wired vs wireless it is easier to obtain your privacy on a
wired system since someone parked outside your home/office cannot simply
logon through your wireless connection. If you go wireless make sure
you read the security procedures for your device and follow them
otherwise others can use your ISP connection for their purposes. They
can also monitor everything you do on your LAN and over the internet for
their own purposes. Your banking ID's, credit card numbers, etc. will
be at risk without proper security measures in place.
James
