-----Original Message-----
Ooops....I forgot to mention that they live at another
locaion about a mile up the road.
You can try using a "Wireless Access Point", putting on
your cable connection, then put a wireless card into each
of your computers, with the exception of the main one,
depending on if it would be more convienent or not, then
get an external antenna booster for it, that should be
able to do what you want. You can get all those through
www.linksys.com, and the external antenna you would have
to do a search for, as it's not supported by linksys, but
it has/can be done.
The acess point would serve as your networking hub and it
can easily be controlled by a webpage, the linksys, is
what I use to just get the signals from where my cable
comes in to where my computer is sitting, in another room
of the house. I notice absolutely no lack of speeds,
etc. I cannot remember where I seen the article, but
there was a person who set one up to reach his
relatives/friends/neighbors in CA doing just this setup.
Unless you set up a server on that modem, which you would
still need an "access point/router" for, connecting both
the one you use and the server to the router, the phone
line to the server and configure it to accept the dial in
connection, then tell it that it should let everyone use
the same connection it uses for the internet. Basically
such as an ISP does. You could go to an actual ISP,
though a major one might have problems with it, you can
probably find one of the non-major ones locally, and see
if they will help you out with the settings. Personally,
I wouldn't recommend that you use your computer for the
server, a small mini-atx would suffice for this, as it
doesn't need much in it, just a single <=40GB HDD, modem,
(most motherboards come with lan networking built in,) if
not a lan card, a video card or port, a TV or monitor to
hook to the box long enough to make the settings,
upgrades, etc. Then set up your parents computer to call
the phone number dedicated to that computer, just as you
would for a dial up to an ISP. Of course if they are on
a fixed income billing for thier phone line, then they
are limited to how long they can talk on the phone, then
that is the only limitation for them, otherwise, they
should only have a bill, just as if they had picked up
the phone and called to talk to you that long.
Hope I helped you out any at all.