Switch + Wireless Router + Cable modem

[dxkj]

Right now I am using a cable modem plugged into a wireless Router to connect to the internet. Everything works great, have port forwarding, etc, setup.

But a problem has arisen. Once a week a few buddies and I like to get together and play a network game. Unfortunately, 2 of them live several states away, so we can't simply use a LAN. These games dont support more than one user coming from an IP address, and since I can only forward the set port to one of the computers on the LAN, only one of us can play.

Before I had the wireless router I would just use a hub, and hook up each computer to that, and they would each get their own IP address. Comcast doesnt really seem to care too much about this. The hub has since died, so I was wondering what my best options were.

I was thinking I may just get a switch (instead of a hub), plug one computer into the hub, and the Router into the hub.

Any other possibilities? This would also speed up my data transfer since my last hub was limited at 10baseT

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Unless you've paid Comcast extra for multiple IP addresses, you won't have any luck with the switch in front of the router.

 

[Bleep]

The cable modem goes directly on the cable, no nothing between the modem and cable. the switch/hub then connects to the modem and the local machines connect to that. The router will assign the IP addresses to all the machines connected to it or to the switch/hub. The switch is much faster than a hub because it directs traffic to seperate machines not to all and lets the macihine sort it out. You do not have to pay for seperate or multipule IP addresses from your provider to do this. I think you will have a lot of problems using multipule machines on a wireless connection sharing the internet playing games but it is doable.


LOOK HERE

Bleep

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn
Unless you've paid Comcast extra for multiple IP addresses, you won't have any luck with the switch in front of the router.

Well, I'd normally think that, but clearly he was doing it before... and I know Comcast's policies on this sort of thing are different in different places (due to them buying lots of existing cable internet systems rather than building their own). So his cable modem may not even flinch if you request half a dozen different DHCP addresses from it.

I would get a cheap switch and give it a shot -- hook the switch via crossover cable (or a regular cable in an uplink port) to the cable modem, then put your systems on the other ports of the switchon regular cables. If it works, great. If not... then you're sort of screwed unless you get a second IP from Comcast. Also note that you have no firewall while doing this, so your systems are exposed to possible security risks on the net.

 

[mboy]

Yep, some cable companies, altho say they will charge yopu for the Extra Ip's, will give them out even if you didn't pay (which mans their admins are asleep at the wheel, but that's another story).

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I've plugged a hub in front of my cable modem to monitor the traffic between the modem and the router. When I tried to obtain an IP address, it failed every time. I just did a port scan and manually assigned a non-conflicting address so I could run my packet sniffer.