From The Naked PC issue #5.02...

Linksys Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port Switch

by T.J. Lee
January 3, 2002

My road to broadband Internet connectivity has been a long strange trip indeed, and not without a few potholes along the way. To recap, I started out with a DSL connection through Pacific Bell and for 18 months my connections were fast and as reliable as dial tone. I installed Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) and as long as my primary PC (the one connected to the DSL modem) was running, every system on my home network could reach the Internet.

But last May my connection went to heck in a hand basket and PacBell was totally indifferent, so I switched to a cable modem through AT&T. Back to fast, solid connections but I had a devil of a time making ICS work so I could share the connection. AT&T wanted another $10 a month for each PC that connected and since I'm the only one using the connection at any one time I thought that was ridiculous. Lots of tweaking and fussing later and I finally had ICS running again.

Still, the drawback was that the computer with the second network interface card (NIC) attached to the cable modem had to be turned on and running before I could connect from any of the other testing computers here in The Naked Labs. It would be nice to be able to turn any one system on and reach the Internet.

Enter the Linksys Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port Switch (model BEFSR41). For less than $100 I swapped out my plain vanilla switch for the Linksys Cable/DSL Router. I uninstalled ICS and had the new router up and running within minutes.

The cable modem tries to prevent you from hooking it up to a router as a shareable device by only talking to the NIC it's installed to. It does this by looking for the NIC's MAC address. The MAC address is a unique hardware address and it is how specific pieces of hardware are identified. The Linksys Cable/DSL Router lets you enter your NIC's MAC address and then it fools the cable modem into thinking it's talking to your NIC and not a router. You plug the cable modem into the router instead of the NIC, which makes the modem available to all the computers connected to the router.

The instructions that come with the BEFSR41 are clear and installation is very straightforward. The router has its own IP address (you must configure Windows to support the IP protocol but if you've networked your computers that's a snap) and you simply type the IP number into your browser and up pops a Web- enabled interface that lets you set up and program the router right from your browser.

The BEFSR41 model accepts the cable modem connection, up to four 10/100 RJ-45 Ethernet connections, and an uplink port to allow you to add additional hubs or switches. It acts as a DHCP server and assigns each of the computers connected to it their IP address when they connect. Just set each computer to obtain an IP address automatically and that's it.

Overall a very nice piece of equipment for the home network or small office that needs to share a broadband Internet connection.

http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/502/tr.cgi?fprod

You can reach T.J. Lee at:
mailto:tj_lee@TheNakedPC.com

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